Medical Records and Privacy

Publication
Article
OncologyONCOLOGY Vol 13 No 10
Volume 13
Issue 10

ASCO just stated its policy on the privacy of medical records, which is a hot issue in Congress, especially because the House and Senate are in the midst of a conference committee on a financial services modernization bill. Medical records

ASCO just stated its policy on the privacy of medical records, which is a hot issue in Congress, especially because the House and Senate are in the midst of a conference committee on a financial services modernization bill. Medical records comes up via an amendment to H.R. 10, the House bill. Rep. Greg Ganske, MD (R-Iowa) proposed the amendment, which says that health insurers—who could be part of a banking conglomerate (hence, the inclusion of this amendment)—can never disclose a person’s medical information to a third party without obtaining his or her explicit approval. But the Ganske amendment includes an exception for “legitimate business purposes.” ASCO states that “insurers should explicitly state in their policies the purposes for which demographic and clinical information will be used, as well as assure that patient-specific information will be available only to providers of care.” That statement seems to rule out use of patient information for “legitimate business purposes,” per Ganske. Julie Taylor, deputy director of policy at ASCO, says the organization has no position on the Ganske amendment.

The Senate bill (S.900) has no medical records privacy provision, and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), the banking chairman, says he has no intention of including one. But his counterpart, Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), wants to keep some facsimile of the Ganske amendment in the final bill.

Recent Videos
Future findings from a translational analysis of the OVATION-2 trial may corroborate prior clinical data with IMNN-001 in advanced ovarian cancer.
The dual high-affinity binding observed with ISB 2001 may avoid resistance mechanisms reported with other BCMA-targeted therapies.
The use of chemotherapy trended towards improved recurrence-free intervals in older patients with high-risk tumors as determined via the MammaPrint assay.
Use of a pharmacist-directed resource appears to improve provider confidence and adverse effect monitoring for patients undergoing infusion therapy.
Reshma L. Mahtani, DO, describes how updates from the DESTINY-Breast09, ASCENT-04, and VERITAC-2 trials may shift practices in the breast cancer field.
2 experts in this video
Related Content