Personal On-Line Medical stuff,...naturally migrating into GOOGLE's hands

[RJSV]

Ugghhhhh, hate to even broach the subject, as I watch each 'specialist', in turn, migrating to 'Google Forms'.
(Call it the 'Uber criteria'; You need rides, right ?).
   Modern HMO combined with COVID related staffing shortages has led to a wholesale scramble, this 2022, for putting every possible medical office task on-line, or via MMS (texting), including even basic phone response.  I even tried 'calling' when my smartphone choked on the password entry screen.
   What are the requirements there, of a lot of AD-HOC being imposed, without usual time and careful management.  "No, it's easy now,". They all seem to say
We gots a smart Patient Portal for all your needs.
A scramble to put those in place.
   Even the typical password / user name criteria can be a mess, personally.  How many of us, using a generic Yahoo account, for example, don't ever sign-out ?
Yes, that 'password' stays live, simply by not signing off, of sites like yahoo, eevblog, etc.
   When the occasional glitch gets me signed out it's a moderately big hassle.  Which, uh, I think the 'blue' spiral notebook...Now, where, oh ok bottom drawer, in Marcy's desk.  Oh wait...that's the GREEN spiral notebook.  Sounds trivial. 
Most folks might just roll eyes, but nothing gets done, (medical office) until you COMPLY.  Maybe, that one office staff can assist, on occasional sign-in hiccups, but these days an older person has something like EIGHT different medical specialists.  And some specialists even have THEIR specialists, Patient Portals passwords login user names.
   Whew. Then run some of that, via 'Google Forms'.  I'm not too keen on that. A personal 'data breach' in my unconsenting posture.
   I don't want to put my whole personal medical info into Google territory.
   When I used ebay, briefly, they started making references to my home town (I.E. Hayward, Ca) which wasn't really (voluntarily) supplied...I guess the eBay web site can get the gps loc. off my phone.
   I'm pretty clear of any real psychiatric needs, (although, lol, many eevblog readers may snicker), so don't have any professional mental health providers, but many of us do, and (they) likely also don't want an information mass-collection...it's just gross.

[tooki]

The only things I can say, after attempting to read that wall of barely-coherent rambling, are that:
1) Comprehensive data protection laws need to exist and be enforced everywhere. The US is way, way behind in this.
2) Unless Google has introduced HIPAA-compliant forms, any medical office using Google Forms is likely running afoul of HIPAA, which has quite stringent data handling requirements. Now, I’m no expert in HIPAA, so I don’t know if pure scheduling information is subject to HIPAA handling criteria. But it seems to me that even just a menu to select what kind of doctor you need to see, or what the appointment is for, would already turn it into legally sensitive medical information.

[jpanhalt]

Hi RJ,

I have dealt with HIPAA since its inception.  Simply put, it took medical providers by surprise while serving the pecuniary interests of insurance providers well.

I agree with tooki that your issues are not well defined.  But, I will add that for survival every medical practice has had to change its culture.  Not because of HIPAA so much as because of government and reimbursement regulations.  It's not the amount of reimbursement per procedure that mattered so much, but the requirement to reduce to a lowest denominator the value of a procedure to some number.  That is, very sophisticated procedures may be coded for reimbursement as the least sophisticated procedures.  Moreover, reimbursement may be based on some arbitrary factor that is not related at all to the precision or accuracy of the result.  I'd be happy to expand on that should you want specific examples.  The simplest analogy I can make is to the VA Medical system of the 1960's.

Of course, my comments are strictly limited to the US.

[RJSV]

Thanks.  A plus to all of this, maybe we can evolve to a point where a giant tech / media company, like Google can be a bit more respected, as the (highly) valued info it can bring to us is a positive thing.

[jpanhalt]

It's not the availability of information that worries me.  That's good.  It's the filters that get applied to bias it.

[RJSV]

Yeah but Google, outside of the political engagement is pretty awesome view / education of the world.

ifwecanjust get them out of political sphere.

[jpanhalt]

Google is still driven by advertising.  Look up anything that interests you. I just threw out "Graves Disease" as it is common. Four different tries gave different ordering of the results.  Commercial sites came first.  The highest up that Mayo Clinic (mayoclinic.org) came was at #5.  A little lower was Cleveland Clinic (myclevelandclinic .org). 

Whenever I look up anything medical, I tend to ignore all the names I don't recognize and focus on well known large medical entities.   The Mayo and Cleveland clinics are just two.  There are a lot of others.  The only non-clinic I will look at is WebMD.  It's not bad, but I will usually cross check what it says with another entity.  In fact, I tend to do that even with the well known places to get assurance the information is up to date.  I also ignore all the homeopathic and natural health stuff.  The only reason to look at the latter is "opposition research." 

Now if you want nature stuff, watch  off-chanel or late night TV.  Learn all about Omega XL and Super beta prostate from various actors and retired politicians (e.g., https://www.prostatereport.com/?ADID=610944458089&wickedsource=google&wickedid=EAIaIQobChMIoZuLjq6e-wIVcQOtBh1mTArnEAAYASAAEgIXufD_BwE&wickedid=610944458089&wcid=17780243183&wv=4&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoZuLjq6e-wIVcQOtBh1mTArnEAAYASAAEgIXufD_BwE ) 

[Kasper]

A friend of mine had her medical record emailed from her doctor's office to a random person with a similar email address because the receptionist made a typo.

[RJSV]

Thanks jpanhalt, I'm interested in both, as in the advertising and info searching, but pet Peeve aspect is more about the assumption, that THIS TIME we're the only ones imposing the on-line thing on you, for your conveinience (when in actuality we get bombarded by the scramble to make every last transaction on-line.)
   Try 'talking that way', to friends / family:
   " Sorry, I went to pick up Susie, at band practice and...There has been an error 467..and then drive to..
(pause while phone checks out neighbor's wifi...), get the dog and...RealEstateAdvertisement...then ...error 403: This Site can't be found...

   It gets beyond simple irritation.  I've actually considered BILLING one of the doctor's offices, for my time spent on medical office tasks...(at home as their client / patient).  Tasks that they've (sloppily) migrated to on-line.
   IOT is a big umbrella, including us...(maybe I need a personal IP number, like every machine out there...)

[SiliconWizard]

A friend of mine had her medical record emailed from her doctor's office to a random person with a similar email address because the receptionist made a typo.

Sending medical info through email is f*cking, mind-boggingly stupid, and email being so basically unsecure, should even be deemed illegal.
Any MD sending personal medical info through email is not worthy of their job. Period.

[SiliconWizard]

You may like to read this post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6932012357942476800/