In 1990 I went to Tripler Army Medical Center to pick up my medical records and those of my wife and son. I was told by staff that due to HIPAA rules I couldn’t take their medical records, only they could pick them up. In 1990 personal privacy was the #1 priority when it came to medical records.

Fast forward to 2022. Today my medical records are digitized and shared not only between my doctors but also with healthcare information management companies and government agencies, who may be able to access them either in part or in whole.

Your Heath Records

A 2020 court case involving Ciox Health, a healthcare information management company that handles tens of millions of medical requests, has potentially altered the HHS rules.

According to HHS.gov:

This [Medical Records] guidance remains in effect only to the extent that it is consistent with the court’s order in Ciox Health, LLC v. Azar, No. 18-cv-0040 (D.D.C. January 23, 2020), which may be found at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2018cv0040-51. More information about the order is available at https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/court-order-right-of-access/index.html. Any provision within this guidance that has been vacated by the Ciox Health decision is rescinded.

The Privacy Rule gives you, with few exceptions, the right to inspect, review, and receive a copy of your medical records and billing records that are held by health plans and health care providers covered by the Privacy Rule.

Digitizing Healthcare Records

Confidential medical records are now digitized and federalized. What was a private matter between a doctor and the patient has became a public matter between the doctor, health plans, healthcare information management companies and multiple government agencies.

Many doctors felt they lost control when they were required to digitize their patients medical records. In 1972, the first electronic medical record system was developed by the Regenstrief Institute. Initially, this effort did not take off. However, under President Clinton this changed dramatically.

According to the University of Scranton:

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine made the case that by the year 2000, each physician’s office should be using computers in their practice in order to improve patient care. Although it was not turned into law, the Institute did provide a variety of recommendations to achieve that goal. As the emergence of EMR’s continued, there were also adjustments made to the rules and regulations surrounding privacy and confidentially of medical records. In 1996 the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was introduced in response to growing issues facing healthcare coverage, privacy and security in the United States. To follow disclosure and confidentiality regulations included in HIPPA, organizations have begun to shift to electronic systems to comply with these laws.

[ … ]

During President George W. Bush’s time in the Oval Office, the budget for healthcare IT projects was doubled; a new sub-cabinet position of National Health Information Coordinator was created, as well as the call for an industry-wide adoption of electronic health record systems by 2014. This mandate has been supported by President Obama as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a piece of legislation aimed at directing additional funding and incentives to healthcare professionals who adopt these electronic medical systems and follow the concept of “meaningful use” by the year 2014.

QUESTION: What has happened to doctor patient privacy?

Federalizing Healthcare

Now doctors and hospitals are not practicing medicine rather they’re just chasing profits and enforcing government mandates.

Hospitals and doctors used to focus solely on their patients, today they are focused primarily on profiting from government largess and sharing personal information with health plans and other heath care providers.

Project Veritas revealed a source who works for United Healthcare of Louisiana’s Inpatient Utilization Management Department is blowing the whistle on COVID cases possibly being inflated for financial incentive.

WATCH: The Chief Medical Officer for United Healthcare of Louisiana (Medicaid) opined in a recorded phone conversation that the Medicaid rate for reimbursement of COVID patients, which is faster and significantly higher, could be the motivation for the improper “primary diagnosis” codes.

QUESTION: How did this all begin?

It began when the government first digitized and then federalized healthcare and transferred power from doctors and hospitals to health insurance providers and government agencies like: OSHA, DHS, HHS and Congress.

More recently this power increased under the idea that government must control all aspects of our lives in order to stop Covid from spreading. The idea of “two weeks to flatten the Covid curve” is now entering its second year. Draconian policies have been instituted by politicians at every level, further taking away the important doctor patient relationship and replacing it with a doctor government relationship.

The Bottom Line

Recently, the UVA Hospital denied Shamgar Connors a kidney because he refused to get a Covid vaccine and DJ Ferguson 31, father of two, was refused a heart transplant by Bostin Hospital because he too was unvaxxed. DJ’s dad says he’s on ‘the edge of death’!

QUESTION: Why aren’t doctors standing up for Shamgar Connors and DJ Ferguson?

ANSWER: Follow the money.

A just released Johns Hopkins University study proved that lockdowns do not work and lockdowns have no (i.e. 0.2%) impact on Covid death rates. So why are hospitals demanding their staff get vaxxed and some hospitals have shut down in response to federal Covid mandates?

Today doctors are chasing profits and not patients. This began with the passage of Obamacare. When the U.S. Supreme Court gave legal sanctioning of Obamacare as a “tax” the transition shifted from doctor/patient to doctor/government.

Today Covid is the driving force behind the government’s take over of our healthcare. If you don’t believe me then go to your doctor and ask for a prescription for Ivermectin.

I rest my case.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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