Another Bill, Another Day, Another Dollar

This Bill is not the one you receive in the mail from the cable company.

This is a bill introduced and has some bi-partisan support, it is called the "The Independent Health Record Trust Act, which was introduced into Congress in mid-July by Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) and on last count this week has bi-partisan support from 49 House members, aims to create independent health record trusts, or IHRTs, that would manage the electronic medical records of patients upon voluntary participation by consumers signing up for these electronic accounts." as reported by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee in InformationWeek .

I dont know about you...but most patients and people I know.. are not going to jump to give their personal medical information to the government to control. What an interesting name the bill has though... "trusts", this should conjure up images of George Orwell smirking over us.

Patrick Kennedy also introduced a bill earlier this year to incentivize doctors to adopt electronic medical records. So, our politicians are taking heed.

Unintended consequence. It does serve a greater and grander purpose ;the so called unintended consequence. This is the unintended consequence for the overall good, (not Marxist, I promise) but, educating and raising the bar on awareness of the need for people to generate their own Personal Health Record or PHR.

In the end , the PHR will be the stimulus for healthcare revolution. A revolution that will not take place until control of healthcare information and the healthcare dollar is given to the people, "the masses"...so, in my eyes, this is a good thing.

Control of your healthcare information is the "opioid of the masses", just watch.

should Doctors withhold a patient's record?

Doctor's receive requests for their patient's records every day. This is part of their practice and in fact, some doctors, have staff to just perform the function of copying and sending their notes to their patients or to the insurance companies, lawyers, or other doctors that request their notes.

Can doctors refuse to transfer or release their patient's medical records?

No, it is un ethical for a doctor to refuse to promptly respon to a valid request for a record transfer. So, if your doctor is not complying with your request, then you might want to have a discussion with him.

I think most doctors are aware of this and I am unaware of doctors that intentionally withhold their patietns medical records. It should be emphasized that most states allow for doctors to charge a reasonable fee for the work and costs associated with releasing, copying, and sending records.


Here is some shameless self promotion... webservice like PassportMD.com , makes it easy, in a Hipaa compliant fashion, to request , receive and automate the process of getting your doctors records, notes, charts , etc and store them in a centralized, secure environment that can be accessed from anywhere and printed off from anywhere.