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Will Private Medical Testing Still Be an Option?
By Sexual Health Blog Contributor | April 21, 2010
Now that Obamacare has become law,privacy advocacy groups are naturally concerned about what this means for patients confidential medical information. One of the key components of the new legislation is the sharing of valuable medical information through new technologies in order to create a comprehensive database of medical records. The goals of such a system are admirable: better care by hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and pharmacies by being able to have an instant picture of a person’s medical history. No one can deny that such a system would be a caregiver’s ideal world…if implemented correctly and efficiently.
Unfortunately, very few large scale initiatives by our government have ever been implemented in that fashion, and the scale of this one is unlike anything we have ever seen before. But even though many of the components of the new health care system are years from being implemented, people are already taking notice and starting to be concerned about who can see their private medical information.
One industry that has already been offering confidential medical testing for the past twenty plus years is the online STD Testing industry. Started during the rise of HIV and Aids awareness, these companies, staffed with fully trained counselors and medical personnel, began offering confidential and immediate STD testing to the one hundred million sexually active adults in the United States. Prior to this, the only option an individual had was to go see his or her doctor, or to travel to one of the crowded, understaffed free health clinics. In each of those scenarios, a detailed record was kept of what activity caused your concern, what type of testing you had done, and what the results were of those tests. As insurance providers started assembling more data on pre-existing conditions in order to rate potential customers, more and more people were concerned that these “black marks” on their health record would somehow cause their already sky rocketing insurance rates to go up even more, or possibly even exempt them for coverage due to what might be considered”risky behavior”.
Now, individuals can alternatively contact one of the many private testing companies, schedule the test at their convenience, and get their results in as little as one day. And all of this is done in private, without anything showing up on your permanent health record. Many industry experts see this trend expanding as more parts of the health care law go into effect, and they are not only talking about STD testing. General wellness testing and DNA testing can now be obtained and can give valuable insight into a person’s overall health and into any possible issues they might be prone to in their life. And only you know the tests you chose to take, and the results of each.
Topics: STD Testing | 2 Comments »
May 7th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Interesting blogpost…but doesn’t really address the title “Will Private Medical Testing Still Be an Option?” Is there something in legislation that somehow forces people to use their insurance, or forces testing companies to “accept” insurance instead of direct payment?
May 7th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Thanks for the comment, Jason. I believe that the answer to the title of this article is “Yes”, and this article was the result of several conversations I have had with other colleagues in this industry. Many were wondering what the effects of the new legislation would be and if it would possibly decrease the availability of private medical testing since most people will have access to insurance now.
After many long discussions and a bit of research, we came to the conclusion that it’s more likely that people will be choosing private testing even more in the future. Why? For several reasons: There may be longer waits for medical services and some people who are concerned with their sexual health won’t want to wait a few weeks to get testing. And in addition, the amount of information that will be tracked in medical databases will most likely be increasing, and many people are very hesitant about having something like this show up. Even if they get regular testing and the results are always good, there are concerns that this could be seen as “risky” behaviour and thus graded and priced accordingly.
One area that’s of particular concern is DNA screenings that are becoming more and more popular. Getting screened to see what your likelihood for getting certain types of cancers are now being offered in many places and there is an increasing number of people getting them. However, anyone who would show up in a higher cancer risk category doesn’t want this information to be shared with an insurance provider for obvious reasons. I have no information on any companies doing this, but the concern is that if that information gets placed into a central database, people at higher risks for such diseases would be placed in higher risk pools.
So for that reason, we believe that many people will continue to choose private medical testing for any types of conditions that they would rather keep, well, private.