Medical records of minor cancer patient are public

A Brown County district judge ruled that the medical records of Daniel Hauser, 13, are public, City Pages reported. Hauser's case has been in the public eye after he and his mother fled the Minnesota to avoid chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma. The judge said the boy's parents have spoken to the media and the case has been in the public thus far. Therefore, it wouldn't make sense to reverse the course now.

He might be a minor and the issue might be medical records, but that doesn't mean this family will have any medical privacy in their case as their boy has forced chemotherapy treatment for his cancer.

A judge denied their request to seal the medical records of Daniel Hauser, 13, who made national headlines when he fled the state with his mother to avoid chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma.

More here.

Records show 14 child deaths occurred despite LA County watch

FOI at Work!
Previously confidential medical records outlining terrifying data were released in response to a public records request filed by the Los Angeles Times, the AP reported. The records show that Los Angeles County Children and Family Services were monitoring the families of 14 children who died in 2008 from abuse and neglect. Ten of those cases are under investigation.

Nearly half of the Los Angeles County children who died last year from abuse and neglect were from families under the watch of child welfare officials, records show.

The heavily redacted records, released Monday after a California Public Records Act request by the Los Angeles Times, include previously confidential medical records, family services documents and police reports.

They show that the families of 14 of the 32 children who died in the county in 2008 from abuse and neglect, including physical assault and malnourishment, were under the scrutiny of Children and Family Services and should have been known to social workers.

More here.

Miss. ranks last for online access

Complaints against attorneys start at the Mississippi Bar Association, which has not computer database of disciplinary action, The Clarion-Ledger reported. Adam Kilgore, general counsel for the bar, said such a listing may be considered when the site is updated. Such are the problems facing Mississippi's online access to public records.

Can you go onto the Internet and see if any serious disciplinary actions have been taken against your doctor or lawyer? In Mississippi, the answer is yes - sort of.

For physicians, decisions can be found on the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure's Web site by sifting through reports of board's monthly disciplinary actions.

For lawyers, any public disciplinary decisions would be available in scant detail from the online docket of the Mississippi Supreme Court, unless the action arrived at the court on appeal. In those cases, the court's official opinion would be on its Web site.

More here.

Fed. Appeals denies FOIA request for Medicare records

Federal Appeals Court judges said FOI laws apply to government, not private businesses. However, that's not stopping the nonprofit Consumers' Checkbook from calling for data that would allow them to monitor health care quality, especially as health care costs rise.

A consumer group seeking Medicare billing records to peek over the shoulders of doctors and grade them on quality said Monday it's not giving up despite a reversal from a federal appeals court.

The case is being closely watched as an important battle in the effort to reshape the nation's health care system. Consumer advocates, employers and insurers argue that access to Medicare claims filed by doctors' offices could help independent groups monitor quality and ferret out waste. Patients would not be identified.

But doctors are worried that such disclosures would violate their privacy, and that resulting ratings could portray some physician's offices inaccurately.

More here.

Act would require drug manufacturers to disclose payments

Disclosure is slowly becoming vogue everywhere. Therefore, you may see less of those prescription drug ink pens and notepads in your physician's office. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act would require companies to disclose money, trinkets, etc. (worth $100 or more) given to physicians. The information would be available online through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) reintroduced their Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which would require that manufacturers and group purchasing organizations disclose all payments or transfers of value to physicians worth $100 or more.

The revised bill includes language mandating disclosure of physician investments in and ownership of manufacturers, and it has sharper teeth. Manufacturers or group purchasing organizations that fail to report payments can be fined between $1,000 and $10,000 per infraction, up to a total fine of $150,000 per company per year, where failure to report is deemed an oversight. For “knowing failure to report,” the ceiling on total fines goes up to $1 million per company.

More here.

Individual emergency response records kept private in Ohio

A 1992 Ohio law that overhauled its emergency reporting system also made data on individual fire department's response times private. Response times for medical emergencies now are only reported by county.

You are far more likely to need an ambulance than a firetruck.

But Ohio won't let you see the records that show how fast the paramedics in your community respond to calls.

Since 2002, the Ohio Emergency Medical Services agency has kept track of response time for each medical emergency in the state. But the agency issues a report card only for each county, not for each fire department.

That's because state lawmakers decided to keep individual departments' records -- not just individual patients' records -- from the public eye.

More here.

USA Today Unveils Tremendous Records Set

From Poynter's wonderful Al's Morning Meeting:

Until today, hospital death rates were closely guarded secrets, discussed in board rooms but beyond the reach of patients whose lives are on the line. That changed Wednesday morning when USA Today posted on its Web site the government's best estimates of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia death rates for every U.S. hospital for two years.

Now anyone with access to a computer can directly compare a local hospital with the one across town to see how it stacks up against the biggest medical institutions nationwide. Death rates from heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia are widely viewed as yardsticks of a hospital's overall performance.

The report is here.