Health Insurance Exchanges Bring New Concerns for Privacy ...

While Health Insurance Exchanges will make it possible for millions of uninsured Americans to gain health insurance beginning in 2014, along with these benefits, new concerns are being raised for the privacy of consumer information that will be stored in state Exchanges.

In order to calculate eligibility for subsidies and provide quotes for coverage, it will be necessary for state Exchanges to gather and store sensitive patient information including basic demographic information, employment and wage information and even medical history.

Lacking a federal standard for data collection, each state is deciding which information to keep, how to inform consumers what is being stored and whether they require permission from the consumer to gather the information in the first place.

While many consumers are excited about the new options that will be available via Exchanges ? both to provide better coverage and improve care ? some are also anxious about whether their information will be shared or even sold. Many consumer advocates are encouraging states to implement data policies before the issues impact development of the Exchanges.

?The whole system could get torn apart by privacy issues,? says Mark Rothstein, director of the Institute of Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville?s medical school. He explains that if people are properly notified, most would approve. ?If you don?t ask people and you just do it, you?re asking for trouble. It?s a shortcut that doesn?t pay off in the long run.?

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