Clinical information systems and healthcare patient portals are proving to be a significant waste of money. Millions of dollars are invested into developing and maintaining these platforms, often by third-party vendors, to provide patients with online access to their medical records. While the idea behind these portals is great in theory, the execution falls flat when healthcare providers continue to send massive amounts of paper copies through the mail, despite the digital system. This redundancy is both financially wasteful and environmentally harmful, especially when patients like me would prefer a paperless option.
Even more frustrating is that at my current health insurance company, I can’t even opt out of receiving paper copies. Despite several attempts to request this, I’m told there’s no way to stop the influx of mail. Now, I’m left with no choice but to purchase a $70 paper shredder just to deal with the overwhelming amount of unnecessary paperwork I receive. It feels like an outdated system where healthcare organizations are not fully committed to leveraging the digital tools they’ve invested in.
To make matters worse, the US Postal Service bears the burden of delivering all these unnecessary documents. This means taxpayers and other users of the postal system are indirectly subsidizing this inefficiency. It’s absurd that after all the time and money spent on developing patient portals, they’re not serving their purpose if the same information is just going to be mailed out anyway. It’s a huge missed opportunity for cost savings and sustainability.
For anyone curious about which platforms I’m talking about, my chart, Healow. These are the two that I have used. I’m sure there are many others, but Blue Cross is also part of the problem, they have their own custom proprietary software that you can log in and see your bill and all that stuff but they will still send you the crap in the mail. And cannot get them to stop
I’m taking a stance against these platforms by always declining to ever create an account on them when the doctor’s office asks. Having medical data accessible like this is just asking for an attack, followed by a leak. And then I can only assume insurance companies buy these leaked databases and adjust rates accordingly.
I’m talking out of my ass, but your data is likely still there whether you choose to create an account or not; so you’re still susceptible to data breaches either way.
I like to hope that my data won’t be released to companies like mychart without my consent.
released to companies like mychart
What does this mean? MyChart is a software solution used by many medical providers. They don’t “release” medical information to them.
This would be like thinking someone using Office on their computer is “releasing” documents they create to Microsoft.
I mean, with o365, you technically do. Your example doesn’t work as well as you think it does.
It does, your willful misinterpretation doesn’t change that.
I looked through your post history, you seem to have at least enough technical aptitude to understand that.
That’s a bit aggressive towards someone with whom you are having a civil, anecdotal discussion. You’re not trading in explosive pagers or nuclear materials. Could you dial it back a bit?
I wasn’t having a discussion with them or you however when you present incorrect information or are intentionally obtuse I will call it out.
If you want to engage me on the original topic I can happily explain both how the concept that a medical provider is “releasing” data to a software vendor is wrong and how equating O365 and Word is wrong.
I imagine you’re too busy finding ways to be offended on someone else’s behalf and making light of recent terrorist acts though.
Just part of a larger trend of trying to digitize things that should never be digital.
What?
Industry wants to place computer “solutions” between you and the world around you to the maximum extent possible. Data is money.
