The next time you receive a medical service, ask yourself whether you would pay an extra buck or two or more if you knew that:

• You wouldn't have to fill out the same forms over and over.



• Your information sent by your primary care physician would be readily available at the specialist's office even before you got there.



• You could be confident that the specialist's diagnosis and treatments were reported promptly back to your primary.



• The whole process of getting results from labs and images was accelerated.



• You knew that information held in one provider's records would be automatically cross-checked against those in another's to assure you that they weren't working at cross purposes.



• You could easily check your own information and get personalized information based on your condition.



• You could control the flow of your own information without filling out another meaningless HIPAA CYA form.



• All of the needed information was available, if necessary, on the other side of the country.

Or consider what you would pay as an add-on to your (admittedly already too high) health insurance premium. Me? How about a couple hundred bucks a year? [healthsignals new york]

5:20:11 PM    comment