| Subject: Americans' health privacy violated |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 05:30:17 09/05/05 Mon
Americans' health privacy violated
SUE BLEVINS
State governments nationwide soon plan to electronically track Americans' use of commonly prescribed medications for pain, anxiety, attention-deficit disorder and sleep disorders.
On Aug. 11, President Bush signed into law the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005. It authorizes 60 million taxpayer dollars over five years to establish electronic prescription drug surveillance programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It requires those dispensing controlled substances (such as pharmacists and physicians) to submit information to state governments within one week of filling prescriptions, including patients' names, addresses and telephone numbers. Data also will be collected on animal owners whose pets are prescribed controlled substances by veterinarians.
Congress' stated purpose of the law is to help physicians identify and treat prescription drug addiction and abuse. (According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2.7 percent of the population age 12 and older use prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes.) However, the legislation goes much further than its announced intent by also allowing local, state and federal law-enforcement agents to use the nationwide electronic prescription drug data.
How will the new law affect patients and doctors? How will it affect individuals' health privacy? What can citizens do to prevent invasions of their medical privacy?
Government prescription-drug monitoring programs could foster mistrust between patients and physicians. Patients would be less likely to trust doctors who are required by law to submit information to states. Also, individuals whose pain needs are not being met and who choose to shop around for better pain-management services could be viewed suspiciously by state governments, or wrongly labeled as addicts or criminals. Some may turn to illegal drugs as an alternative to prescription medications.
Under the new tracking systems, physicians could lose autonomy because state agents, rather than individual private physicians, would set medical-prescribing standards. Physicians also could be encouraged to view "doctor shoppers" as potential prescription drug abusers. Yet, in a free society, we should be encouraging competition and shopping around for health-care services, like we do in most other areas of our lives.
Additionally, the new law will greatly undermine Americans' health privacy because citizens don't have a right to opt out of the state electronic databases. Nor do they have a right to know whether their personal health data are being accessed by many others, including law-enforcement officials.
At the same time, the existing, misnamed federal medical privacy rule (which was established several years ago) permits states and many others to share patients' personal health information without individuals' consent. Yet, many citizens are not being adequately warned about this. When patients receive the federally mandated notices about their so-called "privacy rights" upon visiting health-care providers or picking up prescriptions, the notices fail to fully inform patients that they do not have the final say in deciding who can access their personal health information. Unfortunately, the federal government has misled Americans into believing that the rule protects their privacy, when it actually facilitates data sharing - without guaranteeing confidentiality.
What can citizens do to prevent erosion of their health privacy? They should work at both the federal and state levels to restore the legal right to give or withhold their consent before personal health information is shared with governments and others. Americans also should uphold the right to contract with and maintain truly confidential relationships with the doctors and other health-care providers of their choice.
Congress and President Bush may have had good intentions in creating state electronic prescription-drug monitoring programs. But the new law could interfere with patient-doctor relationships. All told, it would most likely lead to less physician autonomy and more invasions of health privacy for many citizens nationwide.
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