Reply #4: Not only credit card information but personal health

[ikojo]

information...over here insurance companies and their employees are subject to HIPAA guidelines. When claims processing and customer service operations are sent overseas or to Mexico, there is no way to enforce American law especially when it comes to HIPAA.

There was an article in SF Gate about a medical transcriber in Pakistan who threatened to put patient's private health information on the Internet if she did not receive her back pay. Yes, it could have happened in the US but at least in the US there are laws to protect this information.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/22/MNGCO2FN8G1.DTL

A tough lesson on medical privacy
Pakistani transcriber threatens UCSF over back pay
David Lazarus

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

snip

A woman in Pakistan doing cut-rate clerical work for UCSF Medical Center threatened to post patients' confidential files on the Internet unless she was paid more money.To show she was serious, the woman sent UCSF an e-mail earlier this month with actual patients' records attached.

The violation of medical privacy - apparently the first of its kind - highlights the danger of "offshoring" work that involves sensitive materials, an increasing trend among budget-conscious U.S. companies and institutions.

U.S. laws maintain strict standards to protect patients' medical data. But those laws are virtually unenforceable overseas, where much of the labor- intensive transcribing of dictated medical notes to written form is being exported.