OCT 20 1994




XX
Nashville, Tennessee   XX

Dear   XX

     Your letter to Mr. George Stephanopoulus has been referred
to me for response. Your letter questions whether the use of
medical records in the investigation and defense of claims by
insurance companies constitutes discrimination on the basis of
disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA).

     The ADA authorizes the Department of Justice to provide
technical assistance to individuals and entities that have rights
or responsibilities under the Act. Pursuant to that authority,
this letter provides informal guidance to assist you in
understanding the ADA. However, this technical assistance does
not constitute a legal interpretation of the statute, and it is
not binding on the Department.

     The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability
by places of public accommodation, including service
establishments such as insurance companies. Included within this
prohibition is a ban on unnecessary inquiries into the nature or
existence of a disability. Examination of medical records when
determining a claimant's right to compensation for an injury
allegedly sustained in an automobile accident would appear to be
necessary to determine the extent of injury and whether the
injury was actually caused by the automobile accident or whether
it was pre-existing. The policy of reviewing medical files,
therefore, would not appear to violate the ADA unless medical
records were requested only from claimants with disabilities and
not from claimants without disabilities.




cc: Records, Chrono, Wodatch, McDowney, Hill, Friedlander, FOIA
n:\udd\hille\policlt\ltr

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                                   - 2 -

     I hope this information is helpful to you.

                                        Sincerely,




                                      John L. Wodatch
                                          Chief
                                   Public Access Section

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July 19-21                                          Confidential

Mr. George Stephanopolus
Presidential Advisor
Room 39 Executive Offices
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Stephanopolous:

Thank you for your response to my letter of April, 1994. I never expected
an answer back, but am delighted you took the time to write.

Despite the issues I wrote you about earlier, I have a much more compelling
issue to bring to your attention, due to recent experiences I have
encountered, which could involve millions of Americans. One matter involves
the most blatant, outrageous discrimination due to disability I have ever
heard of, and American insurance companies' vulgar exploitation of it. I
have heard of things like this, but never encountered it personally until
recently, when I was involved in a car wreck, and when I was told of a
similar experience a disabled friend of mine has had with insurance
companies, after she was hit in a car wreck, and the common insurance
practice of targeting the disabled in a manner which I am about to relay to
you.

I have reported this matter to the National Council on Disability in
Washington, in hopes that this practice can be investigated and corrected.
I bring it to your attention as well, because, despite the Americans with
Disabilities Act, blatant discrimination still plagues the disabled in ways
you cannot imagine. Let me explain.

Recently I purchased a video at a mall a couple of blocks from where I
live. I walked back out to my my car, started it up, put it in gear, and
whack...

Some lady who was doing 30-35 mph cut across and through the parking zones
and blindsided my car with her van. She came from exactly my blind spot,
from a direction I could not have detected and came from a path that no one
with any sense would have taken; she must have passed over and thru 2
parking spaces and crossed 50 or so yellow lines (breaking EVERY POSSIBLE
rule of parking lot protocol) before she hit me. After reporting the
incident to the police and my insurance company, by phone, I got back out
to my car to find her telling the police officer that SHE was the one
sitting still, and claiming that I WAS THE ONE WHO WAS SPEEDING THRU THE
LOT! She had carefully re-parked her van to make it look like she was
lawfully proceeding down a driving aisle. When he refused to ticket ME for
reckless driving, as she wanted, she stated her intention to sue me for
damages and injury. FOR A WRECK SHE, AND HER POOR DRIVING, CAUSED. This is
plain evidence that litigation reforms need to take place in this country
as well. But it gets worse.

The odd thing was she had her mother, (and a neighbor) with her, to
corroborate her little fabricated story. I had no (convenient) ILLEGIBLE
favorable witnesses, who could testify as to what really happened so if
this goes to court, she would probably win due to the lack of any witnesses
for me. She almost convinced the cop to write my a reckless driving ticket
(until I showed the policeman the skid marks showing she was not where she
told him she was, and pointed out to him that MY CAR was the one that was
slammed a yard over due to the impact). He still believed most of her story
because it was the word of the three of them, against my word. ILLEGIBLE
ILLEGIBLE terribly outnumbered.

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surgery site, but also probably ruptured my L-5/S-1 spinal disk as well.
Whatever pain I was in at the time was quadrupled by the wreck. You should
have seen me; I was doubled over like a 95 year old for weeks. I now have
sciatica again, and my right leg goes out from under me now and then. Since
my physicians utterly refuse to allow me pain medication to control the
pain, I am authorizing my neurologist to freeze my spinal nerves to death
with liquid nitrogen cryogenic compounds. This, he will do over the next 12
weeks.

Unfortunately, I let it slip to my auto insurance company that my doctor
insisted I get an MRI after the wreck, and when they discovered I have a
disability, the insurance companies demanded to see all my confidential
files from every doctor I ever saw, every pain center I've been to.
Including group therapy, psych files, internists files, surgeons' records,
everything. Nosy xxx's.

Do you know what they do with the confidential files, Mr. Stephanopolous?
They look for dirt on the patient. NOT medical records. They are not even
remotely interested in the medical data. I know. A friend of mine was just
in a motor vehicle accident trial, where the insurance co's demanded all
her confidential records for a wreck that nearly killed her, and left her
with permanent disability. The insurance companies shared her confidential
files with the lawyers.

(Some teenage punk with a record of speeding tickets, and reckless driving
tickets in 4 counties had run a stop sign doing 20+ over the speed limit
and totalled her car, nearly killing her). The insurance company lawyers
summoned her doctors, including her psychologist, in to court to read their
entire charts on her, page by page, appointment by appointment, note by
note, out loud, in court, in order to dig up any dirt they could get on
her, make her look bad. For a wreck that was not her fault. Naturally they
came up with some spicy stuff, because us patients think we're telling our
doctors our problems in confidentiality, when they demand to know all the
SCOOP on us.

What this amounts to is this: I have accumulated well over $100,000 in
medical bills with all my surgeries, rehab's, etc. Doctors and rehab units
have been paid major money to 'help' me. However, what this little sneaky
insurance technique does is hijack MY doctors (and their records) to be
used as THEIR private eyes, to suit their ends. The insurance companies use
our paid professionals and their charts and files, to betray their own
patients, in order to defame us and suit their own purposes. This little
procedure uses the people disabled people pay major money to, to dig up the
dirt on us.

What's wrong with this picture? They put my friend on trial, not the guy
who nearly killed her. They put HER MEDICAL RECORDS ON TRIAL, not the
reckless driver. They used her problems and medical records and disability
AS A WEAPON AGAINST HER, to exonerate the teenager, and his reckless
dangerous driving. The insurance companies used her disability as a weapon,
a means to get at personal information to discredit, humiliate, and defame
her. They used her disability as a means to assassinate her personality and
credibility. In the process, they betrayed her doctors' and her privacy,
comprised her confidential treatment, and violated several codes of
ethics in the execution of this injustice. Worse, they took what little
they found on her personal life, blew it way out of proportion, distorted
it, and made up all sorts of bizarre conclusions, concocting all sorts of
bizarre allegations to muck up the issue, and get the subject of the trial
off the boy's careless driving and focused the trial on my disabled
friend's personal life.

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court by my own words and problems, just like my friend ILLEGIBLE
insurance company permission for a release of all medical files, but no
personal, confidential data, and they responded with an ugly threatening
letter, because they don't want the medical files, they want ability to
look for the dirt, not the medical files.

Only the disabled, those with substantial medical files, those with serious
diseases or injuries are vulnerable for this mistreatment. (To give you an
idea of what all these files entitle them to, let me explain: I have been
to 4 spinal cord injury rehab programs. In each one, the doctors &
therapists ask you every little detail about your childhood, your family,
your parents, their parents, your relationships, your adolescence, your
dating, every possible aspect of your personal and professional life. All
sorts of stuff that is no one's business. The rehab's record all this in
precise, incredible detail in the clinic charts. In essence, I have 4
unauthorized biographies floating about in these rehab programs.)
Biographies that the insurance companies know contain enough stuff to stir
up that their lawyers can make the disabled look like the bad guy and serve
any purpose they please, whether to get their bad client off the hook, or
to get a judgment placed against the patient, as in my case, for a wreck I
did not cause.

The non-disabled have NO SUCH FILES that can be hijacked, and insurance
companies know it. Only the disabled are subject to this kind of
underhandedness. This sneaky subversion. Only the disabled are vulnerable
to this kind of duplicitous sneak attack.

Regular, non-disabled folks need not fear this abuse, would never imagine
that it can happen, but the disabled are set up. We are fair game for this
type of technique, and that is why the insurance companies leap to get our
confidential files. We are perfect stooges for them. Powerless,
defenseless. It is what we get for trusting our private data with doctors.

In my case the insurance companies threatened me, to get me to sign release
forms to get the files, but even if I refused to sign releases, they
notified me they could obtain the files by subpoena, so I, as other
disabled people, had no chance from the beginning moment I slipped and let
them know I have a disability. I had no chance from the moment that woman
hit my car.

It is bad enough to have been struck down by spinal disease, to lose a
career, to lose my salary, be in constant pain, but to have this disgrace
heaped upon you as well...like I said, I believe this is the lowest form of
discrimination possible. I feel the disabled need to have someone to
investigate this vile, cynical practice and its appropriateness. I ask you,
sir, and our government to check into this, and its legality. This is
discriminatory as all get out, and it singles out the disabled in the most
gross and despicable manner. And in court, it can turn a trial of a guilt
party upside down, and transform it into a trial of the victim. Our system
has enough of that already. I ask you and the President to investigate this
situation, not for me, but for every single disabled person in this
country. The people who this game is targeted against. This is not right.

Again, thank you very much for your personal response to my letter.
certainly appreciate your taking the time to write me. Best wishes for the
future, and for the President's health reforms..

                                             Regards,
                                             XX

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