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What Do You Do If The Doctor's Office/Hospital Compromises Your Personal Information? Easy... Hit 'Em With a $250,000/10 Years In Prison! (Here's How) Plus: Beware Of Jail-Bird Santas At Your Local Malls And...How To Avoid Being Involved In A "Re-Gift"
December 11, 2003
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Dear Ben: Wanted to see if you have any suggestions on how to two situations I ran into at the doctors office: #1 Their request for my Social Security and Driver's License numbers. I know they want them in case I don't pay my bill, but it makes me nervous having all of that sensitive information sitting around in a relatively unsecured place.
#2 Their terms and conditions of service: They state that they can file against your insurance, provide any information requested by my insurance company and then fax it anyplace-but if they make a mistake, they're not responsible. I know this is "standard practice" and if I don't play ball, they won't let me see the doctor...but how can they get away with this? Shouldn't they be accountable if they compromise my private and extremely sensitive information? Steve M., via e-mail
Dear Steve: You're smart to be so protective of your private health information-especially since your Social Security Number's probably plastered all over every form connected with any insurance claim winding its through "the system." You're right: They want this information so they can pursue you for payment (personally) if your insurance company refuses to pay or comes up short which-incidentally-happens far too often. And your fears of having your privacy compromised are well-founded: Last June Mike Dosskey, a resident of the Seattle, Washington suburb of Marysville, mistakenly received over 60 pages of confidential medical records on his fax machine, despite repeated calls to Providence Everett (Washington) Medical Center notifying them of their mistake. It'll be interesting to see if the hospital's actually penalized for their screw-up, since the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) became the law-of-the-land on April 14 of this year and for the most part, was enacted to protect our medical privacy. Fines range from $100 a day to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for violators.
Dose of Dover For The Week: This week's "Dose" is a direct result of my post-Thanksgiving dinner trip to the local theater to see "Bad Santa;" WFAA-TV/Channel 8 movie critic Gary Cogill described the movie this way: "Billy Bob Thornton plays a foul-mouthed, alcoholic, thief of a drug store Santa. If you are easily offended you won't last five minutes because the extreme R-rated Bad Santa sets out to be the most vulgar holiday film in history and succeeds." So how is this pertinent in this morning's column? Aside from the fact that I laughed all the way through, Billy Bob's character reminded me of a little-known, holiday shopping-related fact from the December 2003 issue of Maxim magazine: 70% of mall Santa applicants have criminal backgrounds.
Aside from making you think twice about putting your kid in the lap of a total stranger dressed up as Santa in the next couple of weeks, here are four more holiday facts, courtesy of Maxim:
#1 Five-hundred household fires are caused by Christmas trees each year.
#2 Fifty-four percent of Christmas-observing Americans will wait until after New Years Day to take down their lights.
#3 The current estimated value of all the gifts from "The 12 Days of Christmas?" $14,558.
#4 Twenty-eight percent of Americans admit to re-gifting lousy presents.
In fact the St. Louis Business Journal reported last year that "more than one-third of people who earn between $100,000 and $150,000 a year have "re-gifted" a gift in order to cut holiday costs." Their research also showed that "as a person ages, he or she is more likely to give to a charity during the holiday season," which leads me to this conclusion:
Instead of giving a lousy gift that someone will re-wrap and re-gift, I've got two suggestions: Come up with a gift that's original and personal and shows you put a little thought into it, or don't waste your time or your money. My annual, out-of-the-box ideas for budgets of all sizes may give you some ideas: www.bendover.com/2003picks.asp.
And if you're wanting to give a gift that everyone will benefit from, think charitable giving. My updated "charitable giving smell test" tips will help you make educated donating decisions-as well as keep your private credit card or banking information out of the hands of the bad guys. Pass the hat and check 'em out: www.bendover.com/charity.asp.
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