In Our Opinion
What would you give up to cut back medical fraud while also improving your doctor’s ability to anticipate your medical needs before they actually occur?
Would you give up your personal privacy?
According to a recent Los Angeles Times story, we might not be far from this scenario. In “Consumer Confidential,” author David Lazarus writes that defense contractor Northrup Grumman has signed a $92 million contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to build the second phase of a computer system that while focused on fraud could later serve to anticipate the medical needs of beneficiaries.
Phase one of the system has already saved more than $1 billion over the last two years for Medicare on fraud prevention. And they’re not the only ones, as public and private insurers have begun to use more of what’s called “big data” — personal information gleaned from a variety of sources — to help medical professionals anticipate people’s future health care needs.
One of those sources is social media. Lazarus uses the example of a man who is trying to lose weight, taking cholesterol medication and writes on his Facebook page he is stressed about separating from his wife and notes on LinkedIn that he is looking for a new job.
He’s a prime candidate for a heart attack, and through the process of “predictive analytics,” the system notifies his doctor about this so the physician can intervene in time.
All of this might sound great — somebody is watching over us medically while also making sure to protect the public pocketbook. But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Virtually a week doesn’t go by without a news story of some company or organization’s information system being compromised by hackers, who steal information — including information about us. On Oct. 31, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson released a report providing details on data breaches in the state between July 2015 and July 2016 that compromised the personal information of nearly half a million Washingtonians.
In fact, the release of the report coincides with National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October.
The fact that we even set aside a month to recognize the need to focus on cyber security should indicate there’s a problem with maintaining our privacy. Many people have had their lives ruined financially through the theft of their personal data.
Then there is social media. Not everyone is honest with what they post. We also post things about other people, family members and friends.
What would happen if people with nefarious motives got access to this social information, along with personal data such as our Social Security numbers? What about older individuals or others who don’t use social media, or don’t use it correctly? How well would predictive analytics work for them? Would they be forced to use social media more?
We all would like to see less waste in government functions, particularly through fraud, but before we rush headlong into proclaiming big data as the ultimate solution, let’s look for other ways too. Perhaps instead of giving out Social Security numbers, we could instead use phone numbers.
Another way might be to improve information sharing between health providers. Does it make sense to go to one medical office and have X-rays taken, and then go to another facility and have those same X-rays taken again, just for their records?
There are so many questions that arise surrounding the advances of technology. In many cases, our laws and processes haven’t kept pace.
But there is a lot of money to be made in technology, and often that seems to be the deciding factor. There are good points to technology, and that’s true with this current push towards protecting our health care.
But let’s slow down just a bit so that we can feel comfortable with the changes, and feel more secure in our privacy.
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