With the federal government now offering financial incentives for health care providers to use electronic records, now more than ever it could be easier for patients' private information to go public.


The government is providing financial incentives to hospitals that go paperless by the end of 2015. The U.S. Department of Health said, of the 5,000 hospital nationwide that accept Medicare and Medicaid, 84 percent now use electronic health records.


Dr. Deborah Peel, a practicing psychiatrist and the founder of the group Patient Privacy Rights, said the technology allows more sharing of private information without defining exactly who has access.


"Our ethics require us... to fight against laws that harm our patients," Peel said, adding that there isn't enough protection for patients.


In 2003, the U.S. Department of Health wrote new medical privacy laws. In the fine print of HIPPA, forms say doctors can share medical records with anyone involved in patients' treatments, payments and health care operations. That covers laboratories, pharmaceutical companies and more.


"They thought it would just be so much easier if data flowed that you would send it yourself. But the catch is most of us wouldn't send our data to all these places. We would never agree to it," Peel said. "We don't know the risks, if we don't know where the information is. We don't know who is using it and why."


Peel said companies have admitted to buying health records online to determine whether to hire or promote employees, even though that's illegal.

"I really think when the public finds this out, they're going to blame the doctors," she said.

The next question, she said, is if the government gives doctors the right to share patients' health records, what personal and private information is next?

The U.S. Department of Health first agreed to give an interview to NEWS9's Kyla Campbell, but when she didn't provide questions in advance, DOH officials changed their mind.


The Patient Privacy Rights group has forms patients can download to take to their doctors to ensure medical privacy, and the U.S. Department of Health also has a video to explain how information can be shared.

LINKS:

- Patient Privacy Rights forms

-U.S. Department of Health video