Your Medical Data is Being Sold.

And it’s shockingly legal. Hospitals selling medical data is a legal and even common, practice. Medical records sit in hospitals’ electronic databases, and they can be used at any time. But to understand why hospitals selling data is allowed, we first need to understand medical law and the extent of what America’s healthcare system allows in the name of research.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA is short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The act essentially provided patient confidentiality and made sure their records were specifically only released to the healthcare system. Spreading patient information by word of mouth, online, or through other means would become illegal. HIPAA calls hospitals or practices that are required to follow the law “covered entities.” Covered entities include healthcare providers such as physicians, surgeons, and other healthcare providers. Health plans such as insurance are also required to follow HIPAA and are included as a covered entity, but a group health plan that has less than 50 patients included would not be a “covered entity.” 

However, HIPAA is not simply a one-note law; it is multifaceted with exceptions covered under the law. For example, the Privacy Rule allows some patient confidentiality to be compromised in order to maximize the quality of care for the patient. For treatment of the patient and later payment for the treatment, some patient confidentiality is required to be sacrificed and is therefore allowed under HIPAA. In addition, the Security Rule applies HIPAA online, ensuring patient confidentiality both in the digital and real world. 

Why is Medical Data allowed to be sold?

Under HIPAA, medical data is allowed to be shared under the condition that patients’ names are not shared. Hospitals usually make a profit out of this exception by selling data, but the needs for this data are generally “good.” Medical data can be used for long-term research studies of thousands of people at a time. Without medical data being sold or shared, this data would never reach the hands of researchers, and medical studies would be delayed or be unable to work with the extreme logistical challenges of keeping medical records of thousands of people over a long period of time. While medical data being sold generally has a negative connotation, it does have the potential to do good for our society by giving rise to health trends and statistics in a large population.

Sources

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)

Hospitals are selling treasure troves of medical data - what could go wrong?