The Canberra Times http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news2/news5.shtml Saturday, 4 December, 1999 Plan allows access to health data The Federal Government confirmed yesterday plans to make large amounts of Medicare data available to insurance companies, law firms and state health bodies. But the body that manages Medicare, the Health Insurance Commission, said private patient information would remain confidential. HIC spokesman Bryan Richards said the commission planned to provide access to information on issues such as the number of consultations by doctors in a set period, or data on how many specific pathology tests were ordered. The Australian Doctors' Fund said earlier the HIC's plan contradicted privacy safeguards outlined in its annual report. "The HIC's plan conflicts with assurances given elsewhere in the report about privacy safeguards for patient information," ADF executive director Stephen Milgate said. "The HIC is either a custodian of confidential information under strict privacy laws or it is a commercial organisation intent on selling its information to the highest bidder. "It cannot be both and it is about time we knew the truth of where this organisation is heading." Dr Richards said that the commission simply wanted to make more data publicly available. "In 25 years of managing personal health information through administration of Medicare and Medibank and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and childhood immunisation and so on, the HIC has amassed a large amount of data which the Government believes should be made more available to improve the health care of Australia," Dr Richards said. "The HIC does plan under its new information agenda to make aggregate information available increasingly and in the public domain and we already provide a huge amount of data now via our web site and through a number of publications." However, he said the commission had no plans to sell private patient information. "We certainly have no plans to get into the business of selling information and certainly not selling personal health information that identifies individuals." Dr Richards said the commission would only charge for the data if the information had to be presented in a different way. "We just charge on a cost recovery basis as we always have done," he said. "The Australian Doctors Fund has clearly misunderstood our strategic purpose." - AAP ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
