HIPAA RFI Comments: Patient Privacy Rights

By ADRIAN GROPPER and DEBORAH C. PEEL Adrian Gropper Deborah C. Peele Among other rich nations, US healthcare stands out as both exceptionally privatized and exceptionally expensive. And taken overall, we have the worst health outcomes among the Western Democracies. On one hand, regulators are reluctant to limit private corporate action lest we reduce innovation and patient choice and promote moral hazards. On the other hand, a privatized marketplace for services requires transparency of costs and quality and a minimum of economic externalities that privatize profit and socialize costs. For over two decades, the HIPAA law and regulations have dominated the way personal health data is used and abused to manipulate physician practice and increase costs. During these decades, digital technology has brought marvels of innovation and competition to markets as diverse as travel and publishing while healthcare technology is burning out physicians and driving patients to bankruptcy. No regulation drives this balance between private choice and collective benefits more than HIPAA and related regulations for how personal health data is used by the institutions that make up the US healthcare system. Increased consolidation by corporate “providers” and private “payers” has pushed the citizens voice further and further away from the regulators through regulatory capture. According to Wikipedia, “Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory a...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Patients Value-Based Care Adrian Gropper Deborah C Peel federal regulations Health Data HIPAA Source Type: blogs