In a case of two people who will be going away for a LONG time, police say two cousins stole more than 1,100 personal information from patients and then used them in a crime trilogy.

After stealing the records, the pair proceeded to commit identity theft, and managed to bill more than $2.8 million dollars in medicare scams.

Isis Machado worked at Weston Clinic and she was the one who printed out social security numbers, birthdays, addresses and other personal info that would allow them to pull this off. Her cousin Fernando Ferrer Jr who owns Advanced Medical Claims then used the information to file tons of fraudulent claims.

I have to question the logic of these two. How on earth did they think to get away with this without anyone knowing. Now they will be paying back $2.8+ million dollars and they will be locked up for a while.

Niner Niner, a collaborative weblog network, has over 25 great blogs and this “Best Of” highlights just a few of the posts that were written by some of the Niner authors, in topics that range from High Heels, Ajax, HIPAA Privacy Regulation to gadgets, books and health. 

In Ajax Blog, Sreejith introduces us to a few new things. First is Vox a new blogging service from Six Apart that uses WYSIWYG with a taste of web 2.0. After that we learn about Krun.ch and Wishlistr.

Blogging Naked: Scarification and lip plates are shown to be some of the newest and more popular form of “self-expression” in recent years.

Bookadoodle: Nancy Callahan posted more in her series “Getting Published” and this latest edition was part 5.

Boomer 2.0 had posts that pointed out that boomers can still have that second career and another that shows many are not even planning retirement anytime soon.

In Class Action Questions find out about lawsuits involving pyramid scams, hair raising beauty product claims and why State Farm was penalized.

Credit Cardenza: Unfortunately, millions of people are drowning in  credit card debt, have to worry about credit scams and fraud, and let’s not even talk about the international fees.

Dealsneak managed to sneak more than a few deals pass us this summer including, the Samsonite laptop case, a gorgeous leather bench, and a sweet looking Thermaltake Tsunami computer case.

Feed Money discusses the fact the Ebay has jumped on the contextual ad bandwagon as well as blog feeds and a program called RSS To Blog.

If you need to Fix Your Finances one of the first steps is learning how to save your money. After that you can check out Mvelopes to learn all about budgets.

At Games For Money you can find places to play free online gambling games and also learn some card counting tricks and tips.

The High Heels Blogs show us which killer heels are on sale including boots, sandals, slides and mules. Also take a look at some killer wedding heels for this summers nuptials.

A few notable gadgets that were blogged in the HyperGadget blog were the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, and the jumbled and messy looking organizer.

Over at the Medcare Forum, Kathleen Milazzo tells us more about that scary mad cow disease and our medical privacy laws.

Find out just how much house you can afford before you go running off to get that mortgage. And is the housing bubble really ready to blow? All this and more in Mortgage Updates.

At My Secret Side Biz learn how to make a profit, how to get your own powerwash, and simple business and Ebay tips.

On Healthy Living: Sarah White tells us all about a new study that could help with asthma reduction when it comes to do light exercise that involves stead breathing like yoga.

On Movies has a decade of super heroes list that includes recent and unreleased movies. Leafworks reviewed The Omen and we got to see the trailer for the new Ghost Rider movie.

Powersellers Blog: Ebay has done it. They finally reached 200 million members and they are also expanding into new ideas. Also people are fed up with Paypal while crooks are finding more ways to defraud your account.

Seo Updates: Yahoo one of the biggest email services was hit with a worm and Google expanded into real estate but won’t be making a browser, at least not anytime soon.

Get some free exercise tips from The Diet Logs. You will certainly need them if you plan to take a bite of this $100 burger.

Living the Single life? Well take a look at some great break up lines and if your looking to meet people Leafworks posted a great review of club La Rumba.

Thumb Gods: Nintendo is no, no to the name Wii for their new console a game system that is at the end of this long list containing The Evolution of Video Game Consoles.

Las Vegas Revealed that it was ill prepared for a massive disaster, but til then you can still get married and get comp’d in Vegas.

Wander the World, well the State of Colorado with Leafworks. He takes us to the Cherry Blossom Festival, Gothnic in Denver, Old Colorado City, Plaza del Arte Festival in Downtown Denver and Garden of the Gods.

In one of the worst cases of identity theft that I have heard so far, a woman named Audra Schmierer was a stay at home mom for six years and now that her little boy is ready for school she is ready to get back to work.

After applying to a temp agency she was called back hours later to have the agency tell her that she already applied. When she went to apply to a tech company they told her that she already works there.

She went on to give the employers her driver’s license, passport, social security card, birth certificate and everything else needed to prove her identity only to be asked the question; “How can we be sure you are who you say you are? The other people can have the same documents to prove that they are Audra Schmierer.

That is a good point. A good forger can do just about anything and unfortunately we live and die by the social security number.

Mrs. Schmierer has learned that more than 200 illegal aliens all over the United States are getting jobs using her social security number.

A year ago she recieved a bill from the IRS they wanted $15, 813 in back taxes from her, because someone in Texas using her social was not nice enough to pay their taxes so she was left holding the bag, so to speak. I said Texas, yet Audra lives in California and yet she still can’t get help from the government considering she lives in one place yet has the superhuman ability to work in a dozen states all at once.

After tracking down the illegal immigrant in Texas via the fake  tax return, the MAN, yes man, told her he bought her information including social and green card from a flea market of all places.

This woman’s life is a nightmare right now. Not only was she detained by custom officials when she came back from a business trip with her husband, but she was also given another bill by the IRS, for $1 Million Dollars. As if that isn’t enough, after working 14 years of her life, her social security account sits at a $0 balance, so she has nothing to fall back on once she retires.

In the recent months she spends her days trying to get help and fix this problem but IRS sends her to Social Security and they send her right back to the IRS, so it’s an endless loop, add to that she has contacted more than 35 employers but they pretty much won’t do anything even though they are now aware of the crimes their so called employees have commited because illegal alien equals cheap labor.

The only good thing so far in the last year is that the IRS have cancelled her $1 million bill. Although she can’t exactly jump up and down considering that it wasn’t her tab to begin with.

Senators have proven they could give a crap when John Ensign brought her case to them and yet they still approved giving benefits to illegal aliens using stolen identities.

I feel very bad for Audra Schmierer, she is living in a “free country” which apparently means it’s also free to commit the felony act of stealing identities and getting away with it, while the victim suffers. She cannot dare to go and buy a house, and even getting a job would a tough task at the moment and well into the future. Our lives revolve around files that the government, businesses and credit companies keep on us and hers is full of black marks right now, through no fault of her own.

All I can say is good luck and hopefully her story being on CNN will get someone big in her corner, otherwise she is well on her own.

We all overhear confidential conversations we probably shouldn’t in various medical settings.

Sometimes, it’s inadvertent: through thin examination-room walls, through flimsy curtains between hospital beds.

Sometimes, it’s downright impossible *not* to hear details you shouldn’t. We’ve all seen those doctors who waltz into waiting rooms to divulge (very personal) information to a pateint’s family …and everyone else within earshot.

How is all this possible in the age of HIPAA and its many privacy provisions?

The answer lies here.

Basically, “the HIPAA Privacy Rule…does not require that all risk of incidental use or disclosure be eliminated to satisfy its standards.”

So, instead of trying to battle this problem, HIPAA simply concedes that it exists (”the potential exists for an individual’s health information to be disclosed incidentally”) and says, oh, well, can’t do anything about that…

I understand it’s a hard thing to fix, but still, shouldn’t HIPAA at least attempt to decrease the amount of incidental disclosure going on?

Source: PhillyBurbs

The CalRHIO has put out a list of of recommended data standards that is needed to have everything connected through out the State of California. This map is more like a guide for California health organizations as they move into the latest technology that is needed.

This map shows what the standard is at the moment and what the standard will be in the next six or more.

Nine areas are addressed: administration and finance, allergies, clinical documentation, imaging, immunization, laboratory, medication, services, and vocabulary.

Source: HIPAA Advisory

Right now HIPAA allows your private medical information to be shared many times by hundreds of thousands of people. The way the rules are now HIPAA for the purpose of your treatment, bill collecting, law enforcement and your employer.

Via Daily Breeze:

All that seems reasonable. HIPAA, for example, allows your doctor to discuss your case with, say, a radiologist if you require an X-ray for an ankle injury. But as things stand now, HIPAA regulations also allow your medical information to be shared by hundreds of thousands of people without your knowledge — health care-related companies such as drug makers, fund-raisers, law practices, marketers and transcription services. And those businesses can, in turn, share your data with their affiliates.

Your information also could be included in health-care research or public-health programs without your knowledge. Such is the case in New York City, where the Department of Health recently launched a program to monitor the blood-test results of more than 500,000 diabetic New Yorkers — a step to help reduce the some 1,900 diabetes-related deaths in the city each year.

I don’t think that most of us realizes what goes on without our knowledge whether it’s money related, or health related when it comes to our “private” information. We don’t know how many hands such info passes through, but we do know that we get lots of junk mail and letters from who knows where and we don’t always know how they got theirs hands on our information.

Congress is trying to look toward the future and become more technology minded by building a national electronic health system. A group of 26 national groups however are asking that at the middle of any such system they add a patients privacy rights to protect patients.

“Patients own their health data and should control who has access to their personal health records. Privacy violations will exponentially increase if patients cannot limit which health care businesses and government agencies can access our personal health data over an electronic network,” said Deborah C. Peel, MD who is chairman for the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation (PPRF).

Tim Sparapani, Legislative Counsel of American Civil Liberties Union has also said, “The intentions of the proposed health information technology legislation are to improve healthcare, reduce medical errors, and save money, but we believe that those benefits will be realized only if there are ironclad privacy protections. Guaranteeing privacy will generate public acceptance, trust and participation in these networks.”

Critics fear that if people are forced to reveal their medical records over electronic networks that they will be less than honest about embarrassing symptoms,  avoid getting treated and even leave out important medical problems.

From PRweb

The 20 nationally recognized organizations are urging Congress to:

•    Restore the patient’s right of consent
•    Give patients the right to opt-out of having their records in any national or regional electronic health system
•    Give patients the right to segregate their most sensitive medical records
•    Require audit trails of all disclosures
•    Deny employers access to medical records
•    Require that patients be notified of all suspected or actual privacy breaches
•    Preserve stronger privacy protections in state laws
•    Enact meaningful enforcement and penalties for privacy violators

The organizations making up the coalition are the following:

American Civil Liberties Union
American Conservative Union
Asian American Justice Center
California Consumer Health Care Council
Christian Coalition of America
Common Cause
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Consumer Action
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Fairfax County Privacy Council
Family Research Council
Free Congress Foundation
National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Health Law Program
Patient Privacy Rights Foundation
Population Research Institute
Privacy Activism
Privacy Rights Now
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Republican Liberty Caucus
Right March.com
Thoughtful House Center for Autism
U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
U.S. Public Policy Committee for the Association for Computing Machinery

A Congressional health subcommittee heard testimony on plans to develop a new medical information database in the United States, and experts said a new federal privacy law would be needed to expand HIPPA to cover the database, according to a story by UPI.

HIPPA covers breaches of health privacy by health plans and providers, but doesn’t say anything about other people who might access medical information such as medical transcribers hired by doctors or even hackers.

A new federal law would have to make sharing medical information a crime for anyone with access to that information. Experts urged that passing of a law to cover the database before that system is put in place, instead of trying to write a law to fit the new technology once it is already in place.

Right now there is a patchwork of state laws covering the privacy of medical records in addition to HIPPA. About 17,000 claims have been filed under HIPPA, but action has only been taken against one company.

Privacy advocates warn that a law that does not give patients the right of consent to say who can and cannot access their records will quickly erode the patients’ right to privacy. The right of consent was removed from HIPPA in 2002.

H.R. 4157 in Congress would establish a nationwide health infrastructure. It is much more complicated than the current system for tracking patient records and, as such, Blue Cross and Blue Shield has said the timetable for implementing the system as outlined in the bill is too ambitious.

For more on the bill before Congress, visit Thomas.

A press release came across the wire recently, put out by Barbara Clark’s people, stating:

Nearly one year ago, Barbara Clark, a former Adventist nurse, filed a complaint with the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) concerning the breach of confidentiality of her medical records under HIPAA; the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

Whenever money is at stake, it’s always important to look at all the sides. Clearly we’re only getting one side here, but if the allegations are true, the statements are certainly troubling.

This pdf on Clark’s website explains a bit more of the background in the case.

We know that the only survivor in the West Virginia mine explosion is still in critical condition, he hasn’t awoken and he’s not breathing on his own. Daniel Engber of Slate asks an interesting question. Exactly how much information are the doctors allowed to give the press?

How much detail

It looks like our good neighbors across the pond have vetoed an all-in-one ID card proposal by the British government.

The BBC reports:

Plans to combine new compulsory identity cards with passports and driving licences have been dropped by Home Secretary David Blunkett.

The UK Home Office’s official response: “When cost, implementation and risk considerations are assessed together, we now think the option of a free-standing card is more attractive.”

Similar efforts have failed here in the states as well. Right after September 11th, I would have been much more inclined to support a national ID card system here in the US. These days, it would take a seriously uptick in terrorism here in the states for something like this to gain acceptance.

Here’s an interesting twist on the old federal vs. state jurisdictional dispute.

First Amendment Center is reporting:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A newspaper wants to report on homes, many of them rented, where lead paint has harmed children. The city health department fears federal fines and penalties if it complies with the state’s open-records law.

In what attorneys say is one of the first such tests nationwide, the Ohio Supreme Court must decide if state law trumps the federal rule.

The 2-year-old federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act prohibits health insurers, medical care providers and entities that process medical information from releasing any information that identifies the patient. However, the information can be released by a public agency if a state records law mandates it.

This seems like one of those grey areas of the law where the legislature did not fully understand some of the ramifications of HIPAA legislation.

Read more here

Just came across an alarming article about how spyware / wormware writers are using professional software development methods to craft Internet worms.

Gregg Keizer reports:

A pair of research reports have explored the long-running Bagle worm and laid out a chronology that points to a professional developer who, like counterparts in the commercial software world, is constantly testing, tweaking, and improving his code for profit, not pride of ownership.
The Bagle worm debuted in mid-January 2004, and according to most anti-virus firms, has been spotted in 60 to 100 variations since then. It’s also usually credited with starting the malware-for-profit movement among hackers, who prior to the ground-breaking worm, typically were motivated by notoriety.

Jason Gordon, an analyst with security research firm infectionvectors.com by night, a security consultant to Department of Defense clients by day, spent the last year watching each edition of Bagel, and recently completed the final third of a three-part report.

“In the year since its release,” he wrote in that report, “Bagle has had a major impact on the Internet” primarily because it was, and remains, “a leader in the nefarious Web economy of spamming, phishing, and stealing passwords.”

Read more here

The privacy spot reports:

According to the Houston Chronicle, Christus St. Joseph Hospital sent approximately 16,000 letters to patients informing them that a computer stolen in a burglary earlier this year may have contained some of their medical records and Social Security numbers. According to the hospital letters, the only patient files affected, to their knowledge, are files for patients treated in the “emergency department in 2004, patients who sought outpatient services in radiology, sports medicine and rehabilitation from August through September 2003 and April through June 2004, and patient charts from 2001.”

Read more here

Just catching up on a bit of HIPAA / Healthcare / Privacy news of late.

Seems IBM announced that it was acquiring Healthlink, the largest U.S. consulting firm dedicated to the health-care industry.

Rochelle Garner of CRN reports:

IBM announced Tuesday that it will buy Healthlink, the largest U.S. consulting firm dedicated to the health-care industry. The acquisition gives IBM Global Services the domain expertise of Healthlink’s 550-person professional organization, including 300 physicians, nurses and pharmacists. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition is the second in one week in which a large IT consulting company acquired the health-care expertise of another. Last week, Accenture paid $175 million to buy the U.S. health-care practice of Capgemini. The 600 North American employees of Europe’s largest consulting company will join Accenture’s Health and Life Sciences practice in North America, the companies said. Paris-based Capgemini will retain its outsourcing contracts with U.S. health-care clients as well as continue health-care consulting in the federal public sector.