Hippa Privacy Law - Usa Only

[debmidge]

Over the last decade, our right to the privacy of our medical and health records has been threatened. In order to ensure the privacy of electronic medical records, the U.S. Congress enacted the Health Insurance and Portability Act, better know as HIPAA. In 2003, standards were adopted to maintain administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to assure the confidentiality of electronic patient health records. Despite the shortcomings of this Congressional Act it does mandate a defined expectation of patient privacy.

This short-lived expectation of medical privacy may become non-existent if the largest

medical transcription * company in the United States is bought out by CBay Systems with its corporate headquarters in Mumbai, India. CBay of India is in the final stages in the acquisition of the largest medical transcription provider in the United States, Medquist Inc. Medquist is reported to have the largest medical transcription base in the U.S., serving 1500 hospital systems, clinics, and large physicians practices, including 40% of the hospitals with more than 500 beds.

In addition to CBay's corporate offices in Mumbai it also operates its medical transcription services out of 38 processing centers located across 10 states in India and one each in both Oman and Bhutan. This acquisition will make CBay the largest medical transcription provider in the United States (without having an office or presence in the USA) and possibly the world.

There are two specific areas of concern regarding this acquisition; first, is the loss of thousands of American jobs. Medquist employs approximately 6000 medical transcriptionists and with time their work will be sent to India, via the internet. Secondly, there is the issue of ensuring the privacy of the personal health information contained within the medical reports of millions of Americans that will now be transmitted somewhere in India, Oman, or Bhutan for transcription. Once the American medical reports are transmitted to India, this sensitive health information is outside the direct jurisdiction of federal law. CBay promises to comply with HIPAA privacy guidelines, but they will do so by way of self-regulation. The US Department of Health and Human Services that is entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing federal privacy laws is powerless if a privacy breach occurs in a foreign country. In effect, our U.S. Congress has outsourced its responsibility to protect the privacy of American Citizens.

For those of us that feel that our expectation of privacy is inseparable from our perception of freedom and liberty, there is only one alternative; contact your Senators and Congressman and urge them to take immediate action to prevent your private medical information from leaving the direct control and protection of U.S. law.

* for those who are unaware, doctors dictate their reports after surgery into recorders and the report gets typed up by medical transcriptionists - these are highly specialized medical typists -- who have been trained and are familiar with medical conditions, surgeries and medical terminology -- who type and send out these reports within 24 hours of receiving the doctor's recording. Many doctors are outsourcing these services to countries in Asia for less cost and putting many people in the USA, who work from home doing this transcribing, out of work.

The above is another complication from outsourcing work to other countries. Highly private info on YOU is leaving the protection of US law - this info may not necessarily be limited to just the nature of your medical condition -- it could be any info which you share with the hospital and doctor, (as you will have no idea what info the hospital/doctor/clinic is providing in their transmissions to the outsourced vendor) including but not limited to home address, social security number, drivers license number, name of spouse/children, Drivers License number - all of which could be used to steal your identity or utilize your health insurance coverage. The transcriptionist in the USA is bound by US law and can be held liable - the foreign vendor is not.