Protecting Your Health Privacy

Protecting Your Health Privacy empowers ordinary citizens with the legal and technological knowledge and know-how we need to protect ourselves and our families from prying corporate eyes, medical identity theft, ruinous revelations of socially stigmatizing diseases, and illegal punitive practices by insurers and employers. Online sites for keeping personal health records are privacy minefields. Individuals are increasingly exposing their health information to abuse by careless postings to social networking sites. Medical ID theft is a serious and growing problem that often has catastrophic consequences for victims' wealth and health. The 2010 Health Reform bill and the 2009 Economic Stimulus package incentivize medical providers to increase their use of electronic health records, which bring increased clinical benefits but also increased risks to privacy and security of medical information. It's a new era in healthcare. Gone are the day when access to your medical records is limited to you and your doctor. Instead, today, a diverse group of constituencies have interest in and access to your health information. A cascade of changes in technology and the delivery of healthcare are increasing the vulnerability of your medical information. Accordingly, it is now more important than ever to take control over your own health information and take steps to protect your information against privacy breaches that can adversely impact the quality of your health care, your insurability, your employability, your relationships, and your reputation. In clear, non-technical language, privacy lawyer Jacqueline Klosek teaches readers the basics you need to know as an individual healthcare consumer about the ongoing wave of national and state legislation affecting patient privacy: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. She untangles the increasingly complex ways by which health care providers, insurers, employers, social networking sites, and marketers routinely collect, use, and share our personal health information. Protecting Your Health Privacy: A Citizen's Guide to Safeguarding the Security of Your Medical Information empowers ordinary citizens with the knowledge and know -- how we need to protect ourselves and our families from prying eyes, medical identity theft, ruinous revelations of socially stigmatizing diseases, and illegal punitive practices by insurers and employers. - Publisher.