Natural Solutions Foundation

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Once Upon a time not so long ago in a land not so away what you told your lawyer and your doctor were Sacred Secrets. If they so much as breathed a word about you and your situation, no matter how thrilling or compelling the conversation it might make, they were liable to prosecution and the loss of their licenses. In a heartbeat.

“Doctor-Patient Confidentiality” and “Attorney-Client Privilege” were magic words which kept the law, and other people, out of your magic circle of trusted confidences. There is a long and sordid history of the invasion of that secrecy but we all noticed downward jumps in the safety of our secrets when

The Nixon White House broke into the office of Daniel Elsberg’s psychiatrist, Lewis Fielding, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg) in order to find Elsberg’s file to find something to use against Elsberg. This act was considered an outrage both because it was illegal (which it was) and because it sought to violate Doctor-Patient Confidentiality, specifically protected by numerous laws.

Then came Tarasoff and the duty of a psychiatrist (and then a physician) to warn potential victims of threatened harm confided to them by a patient. When Prosinjit Podder, an Indian Graduate student studying at Berkeley became obsessed with Tatiana Tarasoff in 1974 and she rebuffed him, their tragedy led to the beginning of the end in Doctor-Patient Confidentiality. The final cataclysmic destruction of any hint of privacy between you and your doctor came with the misnamed HIPAA or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Or at least, that was as bad as it got unitl Yahoo! and Google got into the game!

The Tarasoff story goes like this: Podder and Tarasoff meet at a dance, kiss and he knows that she is his intended. She does not see it that way and he gets upset but goes to get counseling at the University Health Service. Dr. Moore, the psychologist there learns from him that he wants to get a gun and shoot Tarasoff. Dr. Moore, as many of us would, violates the law and sends letter to campus police who decide that Podder is not a danger but they tell him to avoid Tatiana anyway.

When Tatiana returns from Brazil at the end of summer, Podder stalks her and stabs her to death.

Tanya’s mother sues the Berkeley campus police, University of CA Regents and the Berkeley Health Service for failure to warn Tatiana about Podder’s desire to kill her. Initially, the case is dismissed and the judge rules that there is no cause of action, because of confidentiality between doctor and patient (Dr. Moore and Podder). This means, says the judge, that the Doctor has a duty only to the patient, not to third parties. [Emphasis added – REL]

Not so fast. Tanya’s mother appeals and, ultimately, the CA Supreme Court says that a “therapist bears a duty to use reasonable care to give threatened persons warnings as are essential to avert foreseeable danger.” That means that the therapist needs to violate the sanctity of the Doctor-Patient relationship or face charges up to and including accessory murder charges for NOT violating your secrets.
Then things get worse: The California Supreme Court decides that “The discharge of this duty may require the therapist to take one or more of various steps. This, it may call for him to warn the intended victim, to notify the police, or to take whatever steps are reasonably necessary under the circumstances.” [Emphasis added]. Now we have the doctor as enforcer who MUST violate confidentiality and “take whatver steps are necessary under the circumstances[!]”.
But wait: Tarasoff did more damage yet to your privacy with your doctor: Subsequent Cases related to Tarasoff (Landmark Cases):

Lipari v. Sears, Roebuck and Company, US District Court, Nebraska, 1980:
Mr. Cribbs, history of involuntary treatment at VA, buys gun at Sears. One month later, he leaves outpatient VA program AMA. Thirty days later, he fires shotgun in Omaha club, kills Mr. Lipari, wounds Mrs. Lipari. Lipari sues Sears, Sears sues VA, Mrs. Lipari sues VA. District Court rules that the therapist has a duty to detain dangerous people if they are a threat to the public (based on Tarasoff).

Jablonski by Pahls v. United States, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 1983:
Ms. Kimball and Mr. Jablonski are dating. She loves him, but is afraid of his past threats, attempts to kill her mother (Ms. Pahls), and her. She takes him to the Loma Linda VA when he has threatened her mother, on 7/10/78. Doctor says that she should leave him, but feels that he is not dangerous, as Mr. Jablonski has not threatened her currently. He’s released, then he kills Ms. Kimball 7/16/78. Kimball’s daughter (with help of Kimball’s mother Ms. Pahls) sues VA, alleges that there was a duty of the psychiatrist to protect Ms. Kimball. Court rules that Ms. Kimball was a foreseeable victim of Jablonski’s violence, and necessary steps were not taken in protecting her.

Naidu v. Laird, Supreme Court of Delaware, 1988:
Mr. Putney is released from the Delaware State Hospital, after being treated for the seventh admission, for paranoid psychosis symptoms. Leaves voluntary admission March 1977. Five months later, he drives over Mr. Laird, while in a psychotic state, and kills him. Ms. Laird sues, Supreme Court of Delaware holds that Mr. Laird was a foreseeable victim to Mr. Putney’s dangerousness, and did not discharge duty to warn properly.

Currently, the courts say that a duty is present by the therapist (remember, health professionals off all sorts are included here) to take some action to prevent foreseeable harm to a third party injured by the client. That’s any harm, such as not giving your child fluoridated water, not having your mother take a flu shot, sending peanuts to lunch with your 6 year old who is NOT allergic to them while someone int the class MIGHT be allergic to them.

Most states now require the third party be defined as an “identifiable victim,” before the therapist can be said to have a duty to this victim. This is commonly now defined as a person the client has actually defined as a potential victim, and therefore the therapist has a knowledge of this specific need to protect. But this is not the case in all states; some states continue to hold that foreseeable harm to any third party creates a duty for the therapist.

And then, decending rapidly downward, there was HIPAA, the 1996 act which supposedly protects your confidentiality (Doctors can no lonher greet you by your last name (“Good morning, Mrs. Smith. How is your husband feeling?) since that might compromise your privacy about who you are, which you might want to hide. By the same token, of course, you need to sign in at the reception window either as a number or a first name entity.

Of course, the Federal Government, or any of its designees, including credit card companies, the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, insurance companies, or other non-involved entities, at least as far as your health is concerned, can have access to every last item of information in your record. IF anyone in the office tells you that your records are being accessed, however, if the receptionist or the nurse or the doctor or the file clerk TELLS you that your records have been, or are being, or will be, accessed by any of these agencies, who are, by the way, operating without a warrant, the snitch, the person who told you, can face felony charges and go to jail.

Then there is the issue of who owns your laboratory results. The Department of Health of the City of New York thinks that they do. Every time you have a blood sugar and and IGF test, or any other test related to your diabetes, the City of New York gets a copy and monitors your results. If they do not like the results, or if you doctor is helping your control or eliminate your disease without drugs, your doctor and you will both receive letters directing your treatment. That’s right. your lab results have to be right and the drugs have to be right for the City of New York to allow you and your doctor to go forward! See Whose Blood Sugar Is It, Anyway (www.healthfreedomusa.org/docs/blood_sugar.pdf) for more details on another aspect of the invasion of your medical privacy. It goes without saying of course, that this invasion is not limited just to diabetes.

Now how does all of that make you feel when you think about your Sacred Secrets? I know what it does to me as a physician and as a patient: It absolutely enrages me.

So here is what I have done in order to protect myself and my patients: First of all I dropped all, all insurance companies and never submitted electronically to any of them. Why not? Because using electronic submissions methods (email, fax, phone, etc.) puts you and your office (and therefore all of your patients under HIPAA I never again used any such means to communicate about my patients to their insurance companies.

The second thing I did was to declare my practice exempt from HIPAA under the “Country Doctor Exemption” which says that physicians in groups with less than 10 doctors do not have to comply with HIPAA which, predictably, costs the medical office a great deal to meet the requirements heaped upon us.

The third thing that I did was to immediately separate myself from any health insurance reimbursement plan for any of my patients. Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Oxford, you name it, I dropped it. Why? Because your records are safe only in the hands of a physician who does not deal with insurance companies which own not only your medical records and the data in them, but can have access to the medical records of every single person in the practice since agencies typically go on a snooping expedition when they are looking for ways to make trouble. Physicians other and health care professionals who do not use drug treatments are under constant attack. That means that the reimbursement you might get from your insurance carrier for outpatient services is very very expensive for you in terms of privacy and for your doctor since that willingness to bill insurance companies on your behalf (or accept assignment) opens the doctor to outrageous invasion for you and your records. Good by Sacred Secrets! The only Sacred Secret is whether your records are being accessed. This same set of regulations also opens the possibility for attack upon your doctor by those same agencies (including the Medical Board of his/her state since boards receive payments from insurance companies to attack doctors who do “too many tests” since patients generally want to fix what the test finds). Too many for whom? Who makes that decision? Is it in your best interest? Not that I have seen!

And as a patient, I visit ONLY doctors who have done the same. I pay them out of pocket or, if I do not have enough money for their services, I discuss that openly with them and we come to some sort of accommodation. In fact, if a doctor accepting any sort of insurance were to do that, it could be called “inducement” which is a felony charge. Your doctor could go to jail for making it easier for you to see him or her or extending professional courtesy to you or your family if you are a health professional, or poor, or a friend or whatever.

I thought that was as bad as it was likely to get. I was wrong. Read the article below and then ask how safe you private information given the number of identify thefts and security breeches we know about in huge electronic data bases.

Feeling safe yet? Neither am I.

Take the following action: immediately switch doctors if your doctor takes insurance. Find one who does not accept ANY insurance and pay that doctor out of your own funds. Insurance docs (those who accept any insurance of any kind) cannot keep your records and your information safe. Non-insurance docs can. Discuss whether they will and have him not this discussion in your chart.

Health freedom is under continuing attack from multiple directions. Only one organization covers it all for you and takes action with you and for you on each issue. Please keep us strong and active. Make your generous tax deductible donation now. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189). Sign up for the Health Freedom eAlerts (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=187) to stay abreast.
And oh, by the way, this is a private matter, the way your medical history used to be: the Natural Solutions Foundation NEVER sells, lends, barters of otherwise shares your information!

Thanks!
Yours in health and freedom,
“Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

National health records network to hook up with Google, Microsoft
Published on Friday, March 28, 2008.

Source: Gov Exec

The federal office in charge of creating a national network of electronic health records plans to integrate the system with the health care databases that Google and Microsoft launched last year, on which individuals can store their health records, a top official with the Health and Human Services Department said.

The Office of the Coordinator of Health Information Technology plans this year to expand its Nationwide Health Information Network to also include electronic health records stored in networks operated by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, and the Indian Health Service, and integrated health care systems that span numerous communities, said Charles Friedman, chief operating officer for the health information office, which is part of HHS. Friedman spoke March 26 at the Defense Health Care Information Technology Conference at Georgetown University in Washington.

The NHIN is the primary component of a project that President Bush kicked off in 2004 to create a network that eventually will integrate the electronic health records of every American. Bush set 2014 as the deadline to have the majority of the public’s electronic health records available to any doctor’s office, hospital or clinic hooked up to the network. The original architecture for the national network will be built around four multistate Regional Health Information Organizations that will share their patients’ medical data. HHS set up the four RHIOs in 2005 when it awarded contracts to Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., IBM and Northrop Grumman.

Friedman provided few details on how the office would incorporate personal health records from Google Health and other organizations developing similar applications, such as Microsoft’s HealthVault, which it launched in October. By the end of this year, HHS will have demonstrated the exchange of different kinds of health information through the network.

Last month, Google launcheda pilot project with the Cleveland Clinic to provide patients the results of their doctor visits, prescriptions, tests and procedures through Google’s secure Web authentication proxy service.

Friedman did not say how his office will incorporate multicommunity integrated health care delivery systems, but plans to tie these systems into the NHIN indicate that the HHS office wants to expand the network from the state to the local level, with the network hooking up cities and towns within a state, according to an executive of a health IT vendor at the conference who declined to be identified.

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

If you think doctor patient confidentiality is a right, you’re wrong. According to the US Government, whatever somebody wants to know about your health and your life, they can find out, with a little help from their friends at Google and Microsoft.

If you are concerned about this issue, the best protection you can give yourself and your medical records to assure their privacy is to consult physicians who do not take any kind of insurance and have availed themselves of the “Country Doctor Exemption” for physicians in practices of 10 doctors or less.

So-called “Country Doctors” are exempted from the onerous, expensive and highly invasive paper trail imposed by HIPPA supposedly to protect your privacy but actually to destroy any shred of privacy you have remaining.

YesFederal interfaces to the health network will be through an entity called NHIN Connect, Friedman said. NHIN Connect will be based on the National Health Information Exchange Gateway, which Harris Corp. will develop under a contract HHS awarded last week, said Lt. Col. Hon Pak, director of the advanced information technology group of the Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center at Fort Detrick, Md.

Pak, who serves as the Defense representative on NHIN Connect, said the network will use software developed by Defense and VA for the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange, which clinicians in both departments use to share electronic patient information, and software developed by the National Cancer Institute for its Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid. The NHIN Connect gateway integrates health care IT information from several federal agencies into the NHIN. This includes VA, Defense and the Indian Health Service as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Pak said. NHIN Connect is in an early development stage; the first multiagency planning meeting was held yesterday, he added.

The NHIN gateway will save the government significant money by correlating simple demographic information with federal programs, such as determining who is alive and who has died, said Dr. Stanley Saiki Jr., director of the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Group, a joint Defense and VA research organization funded by the Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center.

States and the federal government “really can’t even keep close track of who dies so that their Social Security and other benefits can be terminated,” Saiki said. “This savings alone could go a long way to finance important data systems. Magnify this by the potential increased efficiency in the delivery of health care and magnify this again with universal coverage and [the gateway and NHIN Connect] is a big deal.”