Why Chat's Credit Confusion

MedFico

Here are several links to information about the proposed "MedFico" plan.

It is impossible at this time to determine if this plan will be covered under the FTC statutes of the FCRA or FACTA or any other Federal or State Consumer Protection statutes.

In the interim, I suggest that everyone avail themselves of any and all resources from this website to obtain deletions of delinquent medical accounts from their credit reports.

In addition, the following preemptive steps may be taken if you have been hospitalized or treated as an outpatient at any hospital within the past 6 years.

Obtain your MIB records:

MIB RECORD REQUEST

Send the following to any HOSPITAL that shows a date of service within the past 6 years.

Name

Address

SS#

DOB

HIPAA Privacy Officer

( name of hospital)

address

To whom it may concern;

With regard to my signed HIPAA authorization(s)

Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule you are required to disclose PHI to me upon my request to access PHI or for an accounting or certain disclosures of PHI about myself.

You were also allowed, under Incidental Disclosures, to use or disclose PHI incident to a use or disclosure permitted by HIPAA Privacy Rule so long as you had reasonably safeguarded against such incidental uses and disclosures and had limited them to the minimum necessary information.

Please withdraw my authorization under the HIPAA disclosure obtained for any and all PHI regarding any of my services as listed at your facility.

Date Of Service xx/xx/xxxx

The purpose of this withdrawal of authorization is to prohibit my PHI records from being provided to any type of credit data service or credit rating service as proposed under the "MedFico" plan.

Very truly yours,

SIGNED Name

Send this CMRR

MEDICAL BILLING ADVOCATES

SOME HITECH RELIEF IN SIGHT

CHANGES IN HIPAA PRIVACY RULES

The recently passed federal stimulus package includes changes to federal health information privacy and security provisions under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, that will affect physician practices. According to health care policy experts, however, the extent of that impact remains to be seen.

Put very bluntly, the small medical practice is going to face additional costs for health IT implementation as a result of the HITECH Act's amendments to HIPAA. -- David C. Kibbe, M.D., Senior adviser, AAFP Center for Health IT

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or HITECH, Act, which is intended to promote widespread adoption of health IT, was incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, (Page 144; 407-page PDF; About PDFs) which was signed into law on Feb. 17.

According to provisions in the legislation, physicians now will be required to track any disclosure of a patient's medical information. Previous regulations allowed physicians to disclose patient information for the purpose of treatment, payment or health care operations, but they were not required to track when that information was disclosed.

MedFico

Obtain your MIB records:

SOME HITECH RELIEF IN SIGHT

MORE PROBLEMS ON THE WAY