A copy of Sarasota County's medical privacy waiver form. CLICK HERE to see a copy of the waiver forms.
Posted on 10/05/2012 12:42:12 PM PDT by Altariel
SARASOTA COUNTY - Doctors who prescribe pain medications sometimes find themselves in a tough spot: they may want to report suspicious or clearly illegal behavior by patients, but they are prevented from doing so by the sweeping federal medical privacy law known as HIPPA.
dministrators with the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, which is fighting a prescription drug epidemic that led to 113 overdose deaths in Sarasota and Manatee counties during 2010, thought they had found an easy way to learn more about medical patients who might be breaking the law to get pills.
Their solution? Provide doctors with a form patients could sign that would waive their privacy rights and allow detectives to examine an individual's records without getting permission from a judge, an approach that other jurisdictions in Florida are now considering.
The medical information waivers — which did not carry any indication that they were written by a law enforcement agency — were handed out last year to about 30 local pain doctors, who were asked to have patients sign them. But the measure never gained traction with doctors, and, so far, none has submitted a form signed by a patient.
Moreover, the move has drawn sharp criticism from some in the Sarasota County medical community and from defense lawyers who call it a sly way to violate a patient's constitutional privacy rights and protections under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the so-called HIPPA law.
Normally, police would have to apply for a search warrant or obtain a subpoena for the records, said Assistant Public Defender Mark Adams.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldtribune.com ...
A copy of Sarasota County's medical privacy waiver form. CLICK HERE to see a copy of the waiver forms.
I agree it’s a sly way to violate rights.
But in Tennessee, Purchases of controlled substances are kept on a database. Any doctor can pull a patient’s history and see if they are doctor shopping for pain pills.
They are also required to refer patients to pain management centers if their pain management is long-term.
Our Sheriff here in Onslow County (Ed Brown), has been aiming towards the same goal.
HIPAA
Journalists are so stupid.
Privacy? Hipaa? You’ve got to be kidding.
http://gains.prainc.com/pdfs/integrating/Dispelling_Myths.pdf
“there had ben 22,664 complaints received by OCR (Office of Civil Rights of the Fed Dept of Health and Human Services) through Sept 30, 2006, not a single penalty has been imposed.”
And if you shuffle through the DSM (psychiatry’s diagnostic compilation) you’ll find that various drugs/FDA approved or Street, used to relieve pain automatically qualify a person as incurably mentally ill, and Goodbye Rights.
(dhimi - I think I've got that spelled right)
Good for those doctors! 0bama Care will replace them however with good little drones.
I wouldn’t call this a violation of privacy, since it is voluntary. I only ask why the patients would agree, as if to say “Okay, officer, I’ll help you bust me”? Of course people are stupid. But nit that stupid, apparently, since forms aren’t getting back to cops.
How is this “sly”? It’s rather in your face and obvious.
Yes, relying on people being stupid. But it wasn’t sly of the cops since obviously doctors are not cops and do not share the cops’ interest in curtailing their business. Which makes the cops as stupid as we can assume are the patients.
The cops overestimated their influence with the doctors this time but 0bamaCare regs will break their resistance down.
Disturbing; hopefully this is not the tip of an iceberg.
Why would a patient agree?
They are counting on people to *not* read before signing and for it to be another page in the “routine” paperwork and waiver forms people expect to sign.
You may want to update your research. The rule was passed in 2006, the same year mentioned in your factoid.
It took a while, but the first penalty (2011) was $4.3 million. There have been plenty (plenty) since then.
Yup. Glad I read all paperwork from one prospective doctor. About 2/3 through the forms was a privacy waiver, that allowed doctor to to report any “dangerous” tendencies to proper authorities. Examples were usage of alcohol, overuse of pain pills, gun ownership, and others.
I tore up the paperwork and walked out.
Yea knoxnews.com has been a huge shill for the database. I don't understand how a conservative city can have such a liberal newspaper. When the editor hears about the waiver he'll likely order a new ten artcile series be written on wanting that as well. Seriously after Cagle left KNS it's been a steady decline and about as left leaning as the Memphis paper now.
KNS has yet to write an article saying how stronger post operation pain meds were once used in the hospital and given out by nurses until the patient was released. Hospitals addressed the pain before you were release. HMO's forced hospitals and doctors into One Day Surgery. Also they fail to mention many people are now surviving injuries that a decade or so ago meant death in most cases. The patient lives now but some will have life long serious pain. When they get done with that KNS starts on other medications they want databased as well.
And "Hello" disability check!
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