If Computer Security Experts are Getting Hacked, Why are Hospitals/Doctors Expected to be Better?

As anyone knows from reading the newspaper recently, major computer security firms like RSA and Verisign have been hacked. Even the pentagon!

If companies that specialize in computer security get hacked, why are hospitals and doctors who do NOT specialize in computer security held to an even higher standard?

Criminal penalties against healthcare professionals and organizations are steep for computer data breaches at $100 per record with criminal penalties that can include fines of $250,000 and 10 years in prison.

Given such steep penalties, the assumption is that hospitals and physicians must be experts in computer and network security... even better than companies that specialize in this subject area... or can purchase one.

So who should healthcare organizations hire to secure their computers to avoid getting hacked as I can certainly tell you, they are most certainly not security experts?

Google? Symantec? RSA? Verisign? The pentagon?

They've all been hacked successfully... As such, how can we trust their security products?

The answer is simple... There is no company that can be contracted to provide bulletproof security.

The only way is to NOT use a computer at all!

So here's the interesting quandary...

The government is mandating hospital and physicians to transition to electronic medical records or start facing penalties for not doing so.

BUT, the electronic medical records must have bulletproof security or else criminal penalties and even jail-time can be had for any breaches.

With these mandates, the only thing doctors and hospitals can hope for is to not get noticed by hackers. Either get punished for not using a computer or get punished for not having a security system even better than the pentagon.

Source:
Why the security industry never actually makes us secure. CNET 3/3/12
HIPAA Violations and Enforcement. AMA

Difference Between In-Network vs Out-of-Network Health Insurance Coverage

To read more about general ideas (copays, deductibles, etc) of how health insurance coverage works, click here.

There are large health insurance companies that offer health insurance plans throughout the United States like Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, etc.

HOWEVER, just because you have one of these companies, does NOT mean that the health insurance benefits that apply in the state you live in apply to the other 49 states in the United States. Sometimes, even within the state, coverage may vary depending on whether the physician you see is IN-NETWORK or OUT-OF-NETWORK with your health insurance plan.

IN-NETWORK coverage means the doctor you see participates fully with your health insurance plan and the copays, deductibles, coinsurances, etc specified on your health insurance card applies.

OUT-OF-NETWORK coverage means that the doctor you see participates with your health insurance plan, but you will have to pay a MUCH larger portion of the bill as your health insurance plan will only cover a much smaller fraction of the charges.

In order to determine whether the doctor you will like to see is in-network or out-of-network, you will have to call your health insurance plan and ask.

Please be aware that your health insurance plan may not even offer out-of-network benefits in which case you are responsible to pay for everything if you see a provider who is not in-network.

A final last point is that some physicians may not even be in-network OR out-of-network with your health insurance plan. In this case, EVEN if you have out-of-network benefits, you will be responsible for all charges out-of-pocket.

To see what insurances we participate with in our office, click here. Just remember that we may be out-of-network, ESPECIALLY if you live in a different state from Virginia.

Scrounging for Good ENT Blogs

This blog for ENT blogs has been created! Now we just have to add to it.

If you know of a good blog related to ear, nose, throat, ent, otolaryngology, please contact me so I can add to this blog list.

I aim to make this THE directory for ENT-related blogs.