In his last month in office, President Clinton issued regulations that will limit doctors, hospitals and insurance companies from sharing confidential health information about their patients. If we are to make freedom fully meaningful in the information age, when most of our stuff is on some computer somewhere, we have to protect the privacy of individual health records. Previous to these regulations, there were no federal laws in place protecting the privacy of a patient's health records. Patients have had to rely on state laws, which range from comprehensive protection in some parts of the country to virtually no protection in other states. However, patients must explicitly authorize most other uses of their records.
Patients also gain the right to examine and request corrections to their health records.
Employers are barred from viewing health information about their employees, unless the job directly involves providing health care. Privacy advocates and lawmakers applauded the regulations, which are scheduled to go into effect in 2002. We have tried for years and years to get these protections, and we have been unsuccessful until now. CMCC President Jean Moss, DC, MBA, expressed pride in the college. CMCC, in operation since 1945, is a fully accredited, limited-enrollment, independent school funded by Canada's chiropractic profession.