Free Republic

Although the federal government is spending more than $22 billion to encourage hospitals and doctors to adopt electronic health records, it has failed to put safeguards in place ... The report, released on Wednesday by the Office of the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Department, is the second in two months to warn about flaws in the oversight of the ambitious federal program aimed at converting patient records from paper to electronic.

Karen Santoro heard co-workers chattering about her psychological care in 2010. An Air Force veteran and surgical services scheduler at the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh hospital in Oakland, Santoro asked officials with the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the source of the gossip. It seemed to violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, that prohibits release of medical information. SNIP A two-month Tribune-Review investigation found VA workers or contractors committed 14,215 privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 through May 31, victimizing at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA employees. Photos...

A provision in ObamaCare requiring medical providers to switch from paper patient charts to electronic records is intended to reduce costs and improve care. But privacy advocates fear the transition is too fast for security measures to keep pace. Daimon Geopfert -- a security and privacy expert with the McGladrey consulting group -- compares the situation to a group of banks with tunnels to the same vault. "The security of that master vault, in many cases, is as insecure as the least secure of those banks," he said.

IBD Editorials Viewpoint Under ObamaCare, Doctor's Visits Will Be Interrogations By BETSY MCCAUGHEY Posted 09/13/2013 06:18 PM ET If you think the Obama health law is only for the uninsured and you won't be affected, you're in for a surprise next time you go to the doctor. Be prepared for questions unrelated to why you are seeking medical help — questions that you don't want to answer. Whether you're at the dermatologist or the cardiologist, you'll likely be asked: "Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?" Doctors are being turned into government agents,...