California HIPAA-covered entity sues big time
SAN DIEGO | March 15, 2013
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ir ... th-records
Think this information won't be used to enforce gun confiscations? Think this information won't be used to go after the uninsured? Etc., etc., etc.The Internal Revenue Service could now be facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.
"This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," wrote Robert E. Barnes, attorney representing the John Doe Company, in the official complaint. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search.
This story goes back to March. Guess who oversaw the IRS section in charge of enforcing the new healthcare regs? The same person who was in charge of ordering the harassment of Tea Party applications for non-profit status. They STOLE these medical records, even though they had NOTHING TO DO WITH the actual person named in the warrant they were serving. They just figured, "oh, we've got the access, we're going to take the records, and who's going to stop us?"
My friends, we are in serious trouble.
