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Should Records and Information Managers Be Involved In Medical Records Discussions?
By Doug Allen, CRM, CDIA+ | July 7, 2008
I am taking the opportunity to post two key questions to those engaged in the Records and Information Management profession. Should all of us be involved in the discussion as it relates to what’s happening in the arena of medical records? Should ARMA take a stand as it relates to protecting medical records from inadvertent disclosure or malicious “medical indentity theft”? My position as one who is heavily involved with ARMA and who has been a “victim” of financial identity theft is a definite yes!
My reasons focus on the potential disaster that can befall a victim of medical identity theft. We have witnessed a deluge of recent disclosures relating to paper-based and electronic medical records losses and thefts. What some of us may not realize is what that can mean for us as individuals, and what it means for others whose medical records are used inappropriately or illegally by others. Members of the American Medical Records Association are involved, why not ARMA members and ARMA as an Association as well?
What are the potential results? The results can affect us and others by compromising our financial identity - where medical identity thieves essentially hijack our information to obtain controlled substances - drugs, and can even lead to the inclusion of innacurate information within our own medical profiles. Let’s say, for example, that someone with a different blood type hijacks your medical record. What happens when a hospital relies on that incorrect information to provide you with a blood transfusion? What happens when that incorrect information leads medical professionals to treat you with a medication to which you are allergic? Disaster can certainly ensue, and the risks include the potential for death as the result of treatments based on that false information.
As Amy Buttrell noted on the bankrate.com web site, “Financial identity theft can wound your wallet, but medical identity theft can kill you.”
Beyond the impact on each of us, medical records theft often allows the thieves to bilk our insurers, our government sponsored health care plans like Medicare out of millions and potentially billions of dollars. Fraud in the health care area only serves to increase our costs and to increase our taxes as insurers and government agencies pay for services and for prescriptions that are not needed or used.
What are your thoughts about the stake that Records and Information Management professionals have in protecting our medical records identities? I look forward to your comments!
Topics: Records and Information Management News |
July 7th, 2008 at 8:26 am
ARMA International would be remiss in their duties if they didn’t get involved. ARMA members are currently tackling and solving e-records problems that are only now just being discussed with regards to medical records. Issues involving privacy, security, access, system integration and compatibility.
The overall desire to make medical records available electronically is wonderful, but I firmly believe that no one calling for the move has really investigated the costs and problems associated with this move.
so this is one vote for ARMA getting involved
July 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I believe that more needs to be done in all areas to protect the general public and the health care consumer against identity theft. I have personally been victimized by identity theft in several areas of my life and have spent the greater part of the past 5 years unraveling never ending issues stemming from my identity theft and related fraud crimes. Professionally speaking I have been employed by hospitals, doctors, claim processing agents and attorneys. It is actually criminal, in my opinion, how knowingly and/or inadvertently, medical care personnel and institutions leave us vulnerable to id theft and immense financial losses as well as potentially life threatening medical care mistakes in the case of identity theft for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining medical care. More must be done and the issue must be addressed at the federal level and state levels in a collaborative uniform fashion.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
This is a sticky area, in my opinion. I believe ARMA should communicate/partner with AHIMA and HIMSS on the issue of electronic records. I work in a hospital, and from my experience with my facility, AHIMA and HIMSS is where our staff goes for education in this arena.