HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, December 07, 2017 ]

 

An Unintended Consequence of Data Breach Reporting?  Patients are more and more reluctant to share PHI with their own providers.

I've said many times that privacy exists on a continuum, particularly in regards to health information.  On one end, you have perfect privacy, but that means no one (not your doctor, not your spouse, not your friends) has access to your health information.  Obviously, the privacy is perfect, but you won't get healthcare unless you can do it yourself.  At the other end is zero privacy: everyone knows every medical fact about everyone else.  Here, you'd get great healthcare, since you could compare everyone's treatment experience to determine what would be best for you.  And think of how far medical science could go with all that data.

At one end, great privacy and lousy healthcare; at the other, great healthcare but lousy privacy.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to be at either end; I want to find the happy medium.

That's something healthcare regulators need to think about.  Forcing the publicization of inconsequential breaches instills a false sense of risk and danger that is often more dangerous than the risk of harm from the breach itself.

Jeff [10:37 AM]

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