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Some Doctors Have a Pain in the Neck: New Privacy Law
Health: Patients, Providers Say Regulations Get in The Way of Quality Care
BY MARION WEBB
It’s only been three weeks since a new health-privacy law has been in effect, but some doctors are already criticizing it for getting in the way of providing health care.
Doctors told of heightened complaints from patients who find the new privacy rights confusing, demanding an explanation before agreeing to sign the often lengthy documents the new law requires.
Dr. James Hay, a family practitioner with the North Coast Family Medical Group in Encinitas, said he’d never dealt with a privacy issue in his many years of practicing medicine until last week
“I have never had a complaint (with regards) to privacy of medical information,” Hay said. “In the last week, I received three complaints about the forms having to deal with the bureaucracy.”
Dr. Gordon Montgomery, an ophthalmologist in private practice in National City, shared Hay’s experience.
“The patients almost universally dislike it,” Montgomery said. “They don’t like signing and reading through the forms,” he commented on the detailed statements issued to patients as part of the new medical law.
He finds the extra time needed to clarify the rules led him and his staff to work less efficiently at times. “If you need time to explain all this paperwork to patients it takes time out of people’s schedules,” he said.
Yet the regulation, part of a complex law called the health insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, aims to give patients more control over how their medical information is being used and who gains access to it.
Michael Scarano, a partner with the law offices of Foley
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