âAređĽ you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?â
Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether itâs the dermađtologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why youâre seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.
âThis is nasty business,â says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions đŤâinsensitive, stupid and very intrusive.â He couldnât think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information â but he knows heâll be pushed to ask for it.
The pređŞsidentâs âreformsâ aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patientsâ records confidential.
Embarrassing though it may be, you confide thiđŚngs to a doctor you wouldnât tell anyone else. But this is entirely different.
Doctors and hospitals who donât comply with the federal governmentâs electronic-health-records requirements forgo incentive payments now; starting in 2015, theyâll face financial penalties from Medicare and Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services has already paid out over $12.7 billâion for these incentives.
Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and associate professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, explains that your medical record should be âa story created by you and your doctor solely for your treatment and benefit.â But the newđź requirements are turning it âinto an interrogation, and theđ data will not be confidential.â
Lack of confidentiality is what concerned the New York Civil Liberties Union in a 2012 report. Electronic medical recordđs have enormous benefits, but with one click of a mouse, every piece of information in a patientâs record, including the social history, is transmitted, disclosing too much.
The social-history questions alâso include whether youâve ever used drugs, including IV drugs. As the NYCLU cautioned, revealing a patientâs past drug problem, even if it was a decade ago, risks stigma.
On the other end of the political spectrum is the Goldwater Institute, a free-market think tank. It argues that by requiring everyone to have health insurance and then imposing penalties on insurers, doctors and hospitals who donât use the one-đ click electronic system, the law is violating Americansâ medical privacy.
The administration is ignoring these protests from privacy advocates. On Jan. 17, HHS announced patients who want to keep something out of their electronic record should pay cash. đ¸Thatâs impractical for most people.
Thereâs one question they canât ask: Thanks𦹠to the NRA, Section 2716 of the ObamaCare law bars the federal government from compelling doctors and hospitals to ask you if you own a firearm.
But thatâs the ođ§nly question they canâ��t be told to ask you.
Where are the womenâs rights groups that went to the barricades in the 1980s and 1990s to prevent the federal government from accessingđ´ a womanâs health records? Hypocritically, they are silent now.
Patients need to defend their own privacyâ by refusing to answer the intrusive social-history questions. If you need to confide something pertaining to your treatment, ask your doctor about keeping two sets of books so that your secret stays in the office. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and wonât beđŚ offended.
Are such precautions paranoid? Hardly. WikiLeaker Bradley Manning showed how incompetent the government is at keeping its own secrets; incidents where various agencies accidentally disclose personalಠdata like Social Security numbers are legion. And thatâs not to mention the ways in which commercial databases are prone to hacking and/or exploitation.
Be careful about sharing your međdical secrets with Uncle Sam.
Betsy McCaugheyđ is the author ofđŚ âBeating ObamaCare.â