AnnualMedicalReport.com

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under the authority of President Barack Obama, unveiled an innovative new online tool to help consumers take control of their health care by connecting them to new information and resources that will help them access quality, affordable health care coverage.  As stipulated by the Affordable Care Act, HealthCare.gov is the first website to provide consumers with both public and private health coverage options tailored specifically for their needs in a single, easy-to-use tool.

“HealthCare.gov helps consumers take control of their health care and make the choices that are right for them, by putting the power of information at their fingertips,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “For too long, the insurance market has been confusing and hard to navigate.  HealthCare.gov makes it easy for consumers and small businesses to compare health insurance plans in both the public and the private sector and find other important health care information.”

HealthCare.gov is the first central database of health coverage options, combining information about public programs, from Medicare to the new Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan, with information from more than 1,000 private insurance plans. Consumers can receive information about options specific to their life situation and local community. In addition, the website will be a one-stop-shop for information about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as well as other health care resources. The website will connect consumers to quality rankings for local health care providers as well as preventive services. (more…)

On behalf of families, workers, and businesses, AnnualMedicalReport.com is dedicated to improving privacy protections for personal medical information, establishing technological standards for insurance company use of consumer reporting data, and reducing out-of-pocket costs for consumers by detecting and deterring insurance company fraud and discrimination.

AnnualMedicalReport.com is dedicated to achieving three main goals:

1.  AWARENESS—Improve public knowledge about the existence of consumer “medical report” files collected by the nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies and sold to insurance companies.

2.  SECURITY—Establish a secure, online source for consumers to request disclosure of annual medical report files guaranteed under Federal law (FCRA and FACTA).

3.  FINANCIAL SAVINGS—Save consumers $1 billion dollars before the end of 2014 by detecting, correcting, and deterring corporate insurance fraud and discrimination.

The Washington Post reports that Milliman, Inc. and Ingenix Inc. compile individual “medical report” profiles on insurance consumers. Amid growing privacy concerns, the Washington Post calls these reports, “health “credit reports” drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200 million Americans.”

How does it this technology work?

“When an insurer makes an online query about an applicant, Ingenix or Milliman’s servers scour the data and within minutes or less return reports to a central server at the company. The server aggregates the information going back as far as five years, including the drugs and dosages prescribed, dates filled and refilled, the therapeutic class and the name and address of the prescribing doctor.”

Then comes the analysis. The MedPoint data tool, sold by Ingenix Inc., provides insurers a “pharmacy risk score,” or a number that represents an “expected risk” for a group of people. Of course, higher scores imply higher medical costs. Likewise, Milliman Inc.‘s IntelliScript codes pharmaceutical drugs for classification, according to the insurer’s instructions. So called “high-risk” codes could include AIDS cocktail drugs and cancer medications (both Ingenix and Milliman refuse to release their coding standards).

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If you wouldn’t apply for credit without reviewing your credit report, don’t apply for health and life insurance without checking your medical report.

Health and life insurance corporations have powerful technologies for evaluating and pricing individual insurance applicants: personal “medical report” files. The Washington Post says that these medical reports, which are like credit reports for your health records, have been created for more than 200 million Americans.

Alarmingly, your medical report files may include both medical and non-medical information about you. For instance, personal data collected by the Medical Information Bureau (MIB) may include medical conditions, credit report history, driving records, criminal activity, drug use, sexual orientation, participation in hazardous sports, and personal or family genetic history. Using information from your medical report files, insurance companies can charge higher premiums or terminate coverage. (more…)

Health and genetic information is regarded as the most private of information. People desire to keep their medical and health care records private for many reasons, including personal privacy, avoiding stigmas associated with certain diseases or conditions, and preventing job and economic discrimination.

When the New York Times reported on pharmacy marketing and advertising databases for sale, the Internet was generally outraged.  However, there seems to be less or concern (or a general unawareness), regarding the prescription analytics that corporations are now utilizing to construct massive medical and prescription databases.

According to a BusinessWeek Special Report from 2008, health care providers and insurers work with medical data brokers to compile records of your prescription activity.  Based on this data, insurers and health care providers charge consumers more for coverage, deny pay-outs, or rescind coverage altogether.

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Health and genetic information is regarded as the most private of information. People desire to keep their medical and health care records private for many reasons, including personal privacy, avoiding stigmas associated with certain diseases or conditions, and preventing job and economic discrimination.

In the medical field, the confidentiality of medical information is protected, at the most basic level, by the ethical and professional rules of the American Medical Association (AMA). Specifically, the American Medical Association (AMA) issued the following professional rule in the “Current Opinions of the Judicial Council of the American Medical Association Canon 5.05″

“The information disclosed to a physician during the course of the relationship between physician and patient is confidential to the greatest possible degree…The physician should not reveal confidential communications or information without the express consent of the patient, unless required to do so by law.”

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For the past 60 years, the American Medical Association has made the AMA Physician Masterfile available for sale to corporations and other medical entities. Currently, purchasers of the AMA Physician Masterfile database include pharmaceutical companies, consultants, market research firms, insurance companies, hospitals, medical schools, medical equipment and supply companies, health data brokers, and commercial organizations.

AS A PATIENT, information about your medical care is included in the American Medical Association’s collection of physicians’ practice-level data. All doctors are automatically enrolled to have their practice-level information recorded, UNLESS the doctor affirmatively acts to opt-out. It is NOT the choice of the patient, but the choice of the doctor as to whether the patient’s information will be sold.

The American Medical Association does not grant any doctor or patient the opportunity to prevent information about their medical care from being collected in the Physician Masterfile Database. However, the AMA has been willing to give doctors the choice to opt-out of mailing solicitations and sales calls from pharmaceutical representatives. Specifically, the American Medical Association has two options for doctors wishing to “opt-out” of the sale of their patients’ medical information: (1) the Do Not Contact (DNC) restriction and (2) the Do Not Release (DNR) restriction.

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Dr. Robert Musacchio, PhD, is the Senior Vice President of Publishing and Business Services for the American Medical Association (AMA). In this role, Dr. Musacchio is in charge of the AMA’s Department of Database Licensing, which sells access to the AMA Physician Masterfile Database. In 2002, sales of licenses to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Physician Masterfile generated $20 million in revenue for the organization. By 2007, sales of the AMA Physician Masterfile had reached $40 million per year.

Although the AMA claims information in its Physician Masterfile has been “de-identified,” it is a fact that merging the AMA Physician Masterfile with just one other commercially available database of patient medical info, such as IntelliScript or MedPoint, will cause private patient information to be identifiable.

From Dr. Musacchio directly, here is how the pharmaceutical companies utilize the AMA’s Physician Masterfile database:

“[Pharmaceutical corporations] take our data as well as [data from] several dozen other databases and combine them together with information that they receive from pharmacies, and they put together a picture of physicians’ prescribing habits — by zip code, by specialty, by individual physician — and they use it for their planning and marketing purposes… (more…)