Will Patient Privacy Be Sold for Stimulus Money?

Will Patient Privacy Be Sold for Stimulus Money?

The key to enforcing healthcare reform was already passed in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the Stimulus Bill. This contains $17 billion to encourage physicians and hospitals to adopt electronic health records.

Doctors might not take the bribe. An informal online survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) so far shows that 90 percent of more than 1,100 respondents answer “No” to the question “Should doctors take the ‘Stimulus’ money to computerize their offices?”

To get the subsidy of up to $65,000 over 5 years, doctors have to use a government-approved system. Such a system must be “interoperable”—which means able to share patients’ private information with more than 600,000 different entities.

No patient consent is needed.