lealea1005
Senior Member
It's really comes down to a liability issue.
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Problems Obtaining Mental Health Medical Records
- Thread starter nessonma
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Thanks again for all of your guidance. I ended up hiring a lawyer, and he tried some thing to try to "force" them to release the records, but they are not budging at all so it would come down to court. The cost to pursue this is a bit high, so for now I am just going to put it on the back burner. I learned a valuable lesson and will only go to people I trust from now on. Thanks!
HIPAA Regs
Hello, I'm not an attorney. But I'm going through a HIPAA struggle right now myself.
My deal is simple, but similar in some ways. Transferred several times from
one Dr. to another. Every time I get a little history with one Dr., I request all of
my records. About 2/3rds of the time they say, " we cannot give you what the other
Dr. sent us, HIPAA does'nt allow it". This is WRONG!! I've read through the HIPAA
regs, and they are misinterpreting this just to save themselves time and effort.
Now, what can a person do about this? This is where it gets tricky. The law insists
that you cannot sue them for HIPAA violations. You have to file a complaint with the
Office of Civil Rights. Bush has appointed the top level adiminstration of OCR and
effectively chopped the funding off for the case workers. Physicians lobby from many
angles to keep this arrangement just like it is. I filed my complaint 6 months ago, and check
on it from time to time. But this is going to take time ... period!
Things I've found out.
1) Even though the HIPAA regs indicate that you have a right, that right can be
denied because the State Privacy Law is deemed "more stringent".
OCR is the agency that makes these stringency determinations, and since
they're understaffed, and lawyers can't turn a nickle on this, you gotta research it
yourself while OCR slowly digs through the thing.
2) Even if they find that a violation has occured, they allow the Dr. to simply ... do
as you asked to begin with. No fines, no penalties, NOTHING! Only then if the Dr. is
so ignorant as to INSIST, then maybe a small fine. But it never gets this far. So
they are allowed the stomp on our rights to save ... a few minutes here and there,
until someone grinds it all the way through OCR process. Then they can say ... we're
sorry, here you go. Then turn right around and treat the next guy the same way. They
know most people are'nt going to persue this. There is no motivation to do otherwise.
3) Many states have specific privacy regulations that allow denial of Psychotherapy
records. I don't know the reasoning, but I've seen it often.
Life is tough for the smallfry.
Hello, I'm not an attorney. But I'm going through a HIPAA struggle right now myself.
My deal is simple, but similar in some ways. Transferred several times from
one Dr. to another. Every time I get a little history with one Dr., I request all of
my records. About 2/3rds of the time they say, " we cannot give you what the other
Dr. sent us, HIPAA does'nt allow it". This is WRONG!! I've read through the HIPAA
regs, and they are misinterpreting this just to save themselves time and effort.
Now, what can a person do about this? This is where it gets tricky. The law insists
that you cannot sue them for HIPAA violations. You have to file a complaint with the
Office of Civil Rights. Bush has appointed the top level adiminstration of OCR and
effectively chopped the funding off for the case workers. Physicians lobby from many
angles to keep this arrangement just like it is. I filed my complaint 6 months ago, and check
on it from time to time. But this is going to take time ... period!
Things I've found out.
1) Even though the HIPAA regs indicate that you have a right, that right can be
denied because the State Privacy Law is deemed "more stringent".
OCR is the agency that makes these stringency determinations, and since
they're understaffed, and lawyers can't turn a nickle on this, you gotta research it
yourself while OCR slowly digs through the thing.
2) Even if they find that a violation has occured, they allow the Dr. to simply ... do
as you asked to begin with. No fines, no penalties, NOTHING! Only then if the Dr. is
so ignorant as to INSIST, then maybe a small fine. But it never gets this far. So
they are allowed the stomp on our rights to save ... a few minutes here and there,
until someone grinds it all the way through OCR process. Then they can say ... we're
sorry, here you go. Then turn right around and treat the next guy the same way. They
know most people are'nt going to persue this. There is no motivation to do otherwise.
3) Many states have specific privacy regulations that allow denial of Psychotherapy
records. I don't know the reasoning, but I've seen it often.
Life is tough for the smallfry.
lealea1005
Senior Member
If the Physician believes disclosure of any portion of the medcial record would harm the health of the patient or recipient, the healthcare provider can refuse to disclose that portion of the medical record. The Psychiatrist is well within the law by withholding OP's psych records.3) Many states have specific privacy regulations that allow denial of Psychotherapy
records. I don't know the reasoning, but I've seen it often. Life is tough for the smallfry.
Also I learned, from a very knowledgable source regarding this type of information, that HIPAA doesn't apply.....which is why ecmst12 and I couldn't site the specific information through the HIPAA website. Each state has their own laws regarding the release of psychiatric information.
Hope this info is helpful.
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This one of the reasons medical record errors are the third leading cause of death in America, we have a rapidly failing system now ranked in the bottom among nations. Sure if you're Jerry Seinfield things are great, if you're Manuel Antonio Flores S. things are not so good.
Many Americans are under the delusion that we have “the best health care system in the world,” as President Bush sees it, or provide the “best medical care in the world,” as Rudolph Giuliani declared last week. That may be true at many top medical centers. But the disturbing truth is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care.
Michael Moore struck a nerve in his new documentary, “Sicko,” when he extolled the virtues of the government-run health care systems in France, England, Canada and even Cuba while deploring the failures of the largely private insurance system in this country. There is no question that Mr. Moore overstated his case by making foreign systems look almost flawless. But there is a growing body of evidence that, by an array of pertinent yardsticks, the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care.
Seven years ago, the World Health Organization made the first major effort to rank the health systems of 191 nations. France and Italy took the top two spots; the United States was a dismal 37th. More recently, the highly regarded Commonwealth Fund has pioneered in comparing the United States with other advanced nations through surveys of patients and doctors and analysis of other data. Its latest report, issued in May, ranked the United States last or next-to-last compared with five other nations — Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — on most measures of performance, including quality of care and access to it. Other comparative studies also put the United States in a relatively bad light. . .
Many Americans are under the delusion that we have “the best health care system in the world,” as President Bush sees it, or provide the “best medical care in the world,” as Rudolph Giuliani declared last week. That may be true at many top medical centers. But the disturbing truth is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care.
Michael Moore struck a nerve in his new documentary, “Sicko,” when he extolled the virtues of the government-run health care systems in France, England, Canada and even Cuba while deploring the failures of the largely private insurance system in this country. There is no question that Mr. Moore overstated his case by making foreign systems look almost flawless. But there is a growing body of evidence that, by an array of pertinent yardsticks, the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care.
Seven years ago, the World Health Organization made the first major effort to rank the health systems of 191 nations. France and Italy took the top two spots; the United States was a dismal 37th. More recently, the highly regarded Commonwealth Fund has pioneered in comparing the United States with other advanced nations through surveys of patients and doctors and analysis of other data. Its latest report, issued in May, ranked the United States last or next-to-last compared with five other nations — Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — on most measures of performance, including quality of care and access to it. Other comparative studies also put the United States in a relatively bad light. . .
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lealea1005
Senior Member
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