So HIPAA wants us to be very careful with SSN's.... so what do they do about all the Health Insurance cards that have your SSN built into their ID numbers?
Dr. Razzak, do you have any comments on this HIPAA thing? Best regards, Paul Ravina -----Original Message----- From: William Stacy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 3:26 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Off Topic HIPAA Question Fortunately, my Rbase app DOES allow patient searches by patient ID, name, DoB, address, phone numbers, and (since I'm in eyecare) by Spectacle and Contact lens Rxs. Comes in real handy when the lady dosen't remember what name she gave us last time. Also handy when you can't remember the patient's name even though you just saw her an hour ago. I agree with the idea of epidemic tracking and will rethink that one. You are quite right that you have to force staff to use the alternate lookups, but on any lookup failure up pops the alternate methods, right in their face. You can lead a horse to water... I especially like DoB lookups because they are so quickly entered, so fast on queries, and are relatively unique. I have a routine that looks for DoB duplicates any time a new patient is added to try to trap accidental clones. SSNs work great, but HIPPA says don't ask for that verbally unless nobody else is in the room, and of course not everyone will even give you that. (Also true about DoBs, which is when I go for the other alternate searches). Probably the biggest HIPPA problem for me is monitors that are visible to patients. A definite no-no. bill Bob Speth wrote: > Bill, > Most doctors would not care about old addresses. Those that are > epidemiologists, by training or interest, would. The Love Canal, in New > York, is an example of discovering a public health menace by knowing current > and prior patient locations. > > Customarily, men do not undergo name changes. Women do. To obtain prior > medical records for women, it is important to have all their last names, > maiden & married. Supplying just one last name, a DOB and a SSN is often > insufficient. Many practice management systems (PMS)cannot search by DOB or > SSN. Even if the PMS has the capability, office staff frequently lack the > initiative or creative thought to go beyond a last name search. Multiple > last names help retrieve medical records that otherwise might have not been > located. > > Bob Speth, Office Manager > Nancy L Orchard, MD > 470 Del Norte Avenue > Yuba City CA 95991 > 530.674.4560 > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "William Stacy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "RBASE-L Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 9:11 AM > Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Off Topic HIPAA Question > > > Steve Vellella wrote: > > > > > Bill, > > > > > > It tracks date/timestamp, what the user name is, and whether a record > was added or > > > just looked at, changed, or deleted. It also tracks a date/timestamp for > any > > > patient correspondence. > > > > > > My system also keeps a historical record of exams so that you can look > at old > > > address or different last names - but not detail of editing changes on a > give > > > record. > > > > Interesting. My database links the patient info table to the exam tables > by unique > > patient ID, so if the name is changed, it will show up with the new name > even when > > looking at old exams. Sounds like you are flat-filing exams. I could see > maybe doing > > that in a big archive file, but I think it might be a waste of storage > space. It is > > conceivable that I'd want to know what the patient's old > name/address/phone was 5 years > > ago, but I'm not sure why I would need that info. > > > > > The data auditing table has the potential to get pretty big, but with > storage space > > > being pretty inexpensive these days, it is not a big deal. > > > > Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I try to keep my database as tight and > compact as I can. I > > like being able to save my entire database to my keychain/pen drive. > > > > bill
