The provider or facility owns the health record; however, any personal health information belongs to the patient.

Review the posts made by this classmate. Identify any problems you think could arise from providing patients with access to the information they proposed making available online. Include suggestions for guarding against the problems you identified.

The provider or facility owns the health record; however, any personal health information belongs to the patient. For this reason, the patient is allowed access to the personal health information within that record and must give written consent to have that information shared with anyone except when required by law.

Many entities will use this health record. Other providers within the same facility will review past entries in order to provide more comprehensive care based on the patient’s documented medical history. Providers may also use that health record as a source of data for medical research in epidemiological and clinical studies. Medical coders will use this record to accurately assign codes for billing based on what was documented. Insurance companies use the health record to ensure accurate payment, only paying for what was documented. Lawyers may use the health record in personal injury or worker’s compensation cases.

I believe most of the patient’s medical record should be made available to the patient especially when the patient has multiple specialists for different disorders; a rheumatologist and an endocrinologist. Those specialists may not be within the same network giving them access to the same record. If the patient is able to provide lab or test results to one of the specialist, it could reduce the same labs being run by both specialists or perhaps lead to a different method of treatment based on the other’s treatment plan. Patients should also have access to simply to track and monitor their own health and treatment.

The portion I don’t believe a patient should have access to in their medical records is anything related to mental health or substance abuse when the documenting provider believes the information within that record would have a detrimental effect on the patient. For example, if a patient were to read that what they believed to be real was actually delusions, it could send them into a self-harm spiral.