The government and your prescription privacy

[lesliepear]

Take a look at this LJ entry:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/exileinparadise/151551.html?view=128255#t128255

I'm not too thrilled with government seeing all anexity, depression, sleep and painkiller prescriptions, especially since many of them can be for short term chronic conditions.

Comments

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I don't recognize too many of them (I'm guessing most of them are serious pain killers or mental health drugs?). Still, if they start tracking them, they'll probably find a lot of people who have acute conditions vs. chronic abusers. They'd have to somehow figure out which doctors prescribe this stuff - because for some doctor's a high rate of those Rx's may be normal (pschyatrists or surgeons - especially a top notch specialized surgeon that people are referred to).

[hel_ana]

A whole bunch of them are anabolic steroids.

And of course, the illegal drugs (cocaine, LSD, etc) are on there too.

But yes, this whole thing will require masses of number crunchers.

Bureaucratic Nightmare

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

They'd probably monitor some OB/GYN who prescribed too much percoset for c-sections!

Re: Bureaucratic Nightmare

[hel_ana]

Well, to be honest with you, I suspect they're going to be more concentrating on things like

"oh, look.. Jimmy here got a prescription for a 30 day supply of OxyContin on February 5, then on February 12th, he got a second prescription for the same thing from a different doctor/pharmacy, and on the 19th, he got a third. Perhaps we should talk to jimmy"