E-Health Records May Be In Our Future

A bill being proposed before Congress would set up a new system to handle our medical records electronically. It seems that the proposal will attempt to entice doctors to submit patient information to a E-Trust which will contain patient records that are going to follow us through out our lives. The hope is that this may provide more medical data to doctors while at the same time protecting patients rights. The article also states that:

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.

The IHRTs would be allowed to generate revenue through charging consumers and other participants account and transaction fees, as well as from the sale of information to third parties, such as researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

However, as an incentive for doctors to use and contribute data to the trust, health care providers would not be charged fees for accessing the trust’s data. On top of that, doctors could also be financially rewarded for submitting authorized patient data to the trust through “sharing” the trust’s revenue. The “revenue sharing” with doctors would be non-taxable income for the physicians, another benefit.

Under the proposal, the records managed by the trust would “travel” with the individual through life, and not be controlled or owned by any particular health care provider, employer, payer, or other party.

I think after reading the proposal, the first thing that came to my mind is how secure is this data going to be? Not that I don’t trust the feds! LOL. Hopefully this will be a benefit and not a sore spot for all of us.

Full article here.
[tags]e-health, records, feds, [/tags]