Consumers need to have confidence that while some of their information may be used for activities such as determining a better course of treatment or providing preventive services, their medical information is nevertheless protected. The days of a patient seeing only his or her family practitioner are dwindling. A 1997 KPMG Peat Marwick survey shows that 82 percent of those individuals receiving health benefits from their employers are part of a managed care plan. Now, diverse groups of health care practitioners, such as specialists and allied health care professionals, provide care to patients that can only be done using medical record information. It is fundamental that one understands that access to health information by providers and payers does not mean unfettered access among the public.
Protective parameters do exist to keep sensitive medical information confidential.
Medical records confidentiality legislation presents the health care industry with hard choices and difficult tradeoffs. The importance of trust in the provider-patient relationship must be preserved. Health records are used to improve health care quality, reduce health care costs, expand the availability of health care services, protect public health, and assure public accountability of the health care system. Confidentiality, when taken in its purest form by putting firewalls around information, potentially competes with all of these objectives. Congress must strike a careful balance among these worthy goals.