Patient Access to Health Information is a Right

I was browsing some old notes I’d taken to interesting resources and ideas. I came across some videos that ONC had created around the rights of patients when it comes to accessing health information.

Here’s a look at the first video:

The video is 3 minutes long and the information could have been shared in 30 seconds, but some of the points it shares are really good. For example, that it’s your right to be able to access your health information. Also, they make the point that you still have the right to get access to your health information even if you haven’t paid your bill.

It’s always amazing to me how many misconceptions there are out there when it comes to access to health information. We see HIPAA and other rules used as a reason to not provide patients their health information a lot and it’s often wrong.

The great thing is that over the 11 years I’ve been blogging, we’ve seen a real sea change in people’s perspectives on how and when you should have access to your patient record. That said, we still have a ways to go. Technology should make that record available to you whenever and wherever you want in near real time fashion. We see that in some organizations, but not enough.

These videos will never go viral, but they are a good information source for those patients who aren’t sure about their rights when it comes to access to their health information.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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