From a health care stand point, the message I receive from this article, is start paying cash...pay your doctor with cash if don't want the visit added to the over bulging data bases full of medical statistics, etc. and don't forget about the MIB, medical insurance bureau...the information is supposed to be antonymous, but don't take that too lightly as data base experts can link and relate data as needed. More than likely with a few queries to compare information, matches are made and much of this is not disclosed as the public data bases may be considered to be in the public information area; however, the queries run to compare them are NOT in most cases, and this is known in some circles as data mining. Information can be used both for beneficial uses and those not so beneficial.
Many databases are for sale as well, think of it when you get emails, phone solicitors..it all comes from data collected and we have been at this for a number of years now so the information contained is huge and efforts to query and consolidate data for information purposes is not going to stop anytime soon. This is a bit of an abstract, but think about this..will the day come when you visit your physician, for him/her to have what you purchased last at the grocery store to identify your eating habits, not to mention what type of laundry detergent you use, if you wanted to go that far, and at the same time have a full record of where you eat out, what medications you have filled at the pharmacies, any history of automobile accidents, what type of computer you use at home, and whether or not you research health items as a practice? They could also have your entire medical claims history right at their fingertips as well as a full listing of visits you have made to any medical facility.
In some areas, you have no control over what is entered and some you still do. Anyway, I think paying your doctor cash when you can, just may not be a bad idea...for the entire visit though, as a deductible payment still goes into insurance data bases for claim payment for the remainder of the bill. Anyway, this is a good article to read about how data and privacy work or in some areas and in other areas it doesn't necessarily work for our benefit but more for rationalizing cutting expenses. BD
Even more disturbing: All of those data files can be linked and cross-referenced.
Most of the major proposals for health-care reform, for example, include compiling medical records into easily and widely accessible digital files. In July, the FBI requested $5 million to pay the major phone companies to maintain logs of your calls—information the Feds can’t legally stockpile themselves but might find useful later.
What you buy, where you go, whom you call, the Web sites you visit, the e-mails you send—all of that information can be monitored and logged. “When you’re out in public, it’s becoming a near certainty that your image will be captured,” says (the newly nonsmoking) Bankston.
Should you care? I’ve interviewed numerous people on all sides of the privacy debate to find out just how wary we should be.
The Piggly Wiggly discount card saves you $206 on your annual grocery bill, but it counts how many doughnuts and six-packs you buy.
Experts say it’s crucial to recognize that those bits of data are permanent—a trail of electronic crumbs that is never swept away, available to anyone with the skills and inclination to sniff it out. Details about you already are stashed in enormous databases. Unless you pay cash for everything, data brokers almost certainly have compiled a profile of you that will be bought and sold dozens of times to marketers and direct-mail firms.
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