Privacy advocates sound alarm about electronic prescribing

Tag : electronic call
Where there’s a push to make medical records electronic, there’s a worried patient-privacy advocate.

In an interview with USA Today, Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, raised a red flag about electronic prescribing: “Any time you put something in a digital format and standardize it, it becomes much more profitable and easy to move those records.”

That recent Medicare law that averted a big cut in doctors’ pay also included some language encouraging docs to write electronic prescriptions. As this WSJ article explains, the law initially boosts Medicare payments to physicians who make the change. Then, in later years, it docks doctors’ fees if they fail to adopt the technology.

But Sparapani isn’t the only advocate who has a headache thinking about what this means for patients who don’t want their private info floating around. A group called the Coalition for Patient Privacy, which includes the ACLU and a bunch of other organizations, has said this: “While e-prescribing is attractive to many, Americans do not want their private prescription information data mined and used without their permission. Many Americans would be quite alarmed to discover their employer and others know they take an anti-anxiety medication or that they are being treated for an STD.”

E-Prescribing Bonus: During its earnings call last week, pharmacy benefits manager Medco, which is involved in a big e-prescribing network, said the Medicare law means e-prescribing is turning a corner. “The largest barrier to physician adoption has been removed,” CEO David Snow said. Once doctors adjust for Medicare, he said, they’ll do it for everybody else.