No Plans To Reduce Fees For Those In Need In Ontario
Ontario does not plan to reduce the fees people will be charged for access to their medical records despite orders that were made public from the information commissioner, who wished to set benchmarks that were more reasonable for citizens.
Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, has asked the government to outline precise fees that health care providers must abide by when charging people for the right to access their personal records.
This resulted from numerous complaints people had sent to the commissioner's office regarding these fees.
However, the health minister stated that the province did not currently have plans to change the fee system in place.
Deb Matthews, the health minister, indicated he would speak with the Ontario Medical Information to find out more about the issue.
However, he recommended seeing the commissioner if people felt the fees they were facing were unfair.
Cavoukian stated that patients had brought complains to her regarding how they had to pay their physicians $125 to obtain 34 pages of their personal records.
She added that her office had been able to reduce the fee to $33.
50, which she stated was defensible, even though some people would still view such a fee as a high one.
In the meantime, her office has created a number of benchmarks that are designed to help physicians make sure they charge people reasonable fees when providing access to medical records.
These benchmarks should assist people even though full government regulation is not yet present.
Although these benchmarks cannot be enforced everywhere in the province, they can still help people who are seeking to bring cases to the information commissioner.
David Caplan, the former health minister, created a bill last September aimed at clarifying the current laws that involve the dissemination of personal medical records.
The question of what fees are excessive when they are passed on to patients seeking access to their medical records, therefore, is being addressed by private member bills in the province.
The bill by Caplan requested that any fees that had to do with obtainment of health records would be banned.
The bill also requested a change in the laws involving health records so that any personal health information that health professionals controlled would belong to parents.
Christine Elliott, a progressive conservative clinic, spoke out in support of the idea of having regulated fees.
She noted that the current system was likely to create problems, barriers, and roadblocks to current, future, and past patients.
She added that if the goal of the health care process was to empower people to be proactive about the maintenance and management of their health, then it would clearly be necessary to provide equal amounts of access to personal health records, no matter where a person was located in the province.
Another opposition member, Andrea Horwarth, leader of the NDP, stated that at a minimum, it was necessary for fees to be low and regulated, which would be a compromise if they were not completely removed from the health care system.
Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, has asked the government to outline precise fees that health care providers must abide by when charging people for the right to access their personal records.
This resulted from numerous complaints people had sent to the commissioner's office regarding these fees.
However, the health minister stated that the province did not currently have plans to change the fee system in place.
Deb Matthews, the health minister, indicated he would speak with the Ontario Medical Information to find out more about the issue.
However, he recommended seeing the commissioner if people felt the fees they were facing were unfair.
Cavoukian stated that patients had brought complains to her regarding how they had to pay their physicians $125 to obtain 34 pages of their personal records.
She added that her office had been able to reduce the fee to $33.
50, which she stated was defensible, even though some people would still view such a fee as a high one.
In the meantime, her office has created a number of benchmarks that are designed to help physicians make sure they charge people reasonable fees when providing access to medical records.
These benchmarks should assist people even though full government regulation is not yet present.
Although these benchmarks cannot be enforced everywhere in the province, they can still help people who are seeking to bring cases to the information commissioner.
David Caplan, the former health minister, created a bill last September aimed at clarifying the current laws that involve the dissemination of personal medical records.
The question of what fees are excessive when they are passed on to patients seeking access to their medical records, therefore, is being addressed by private member bills in the province.
The bill by Caplan requested that any fees that had to do with obtainment of health records would be banned.
The bill also requested a change in the laws involving health records so that any personal health information that health professionals controlled would belong to parents.
Christine Elliott, a progressive conservative clinic, spoke out in support of the idea of having regulated fees.
She noted that the current system was likely to create problems, barriers, and roadblocks to current, future, and past patients.
She added that if the goal of the health care process was to empower people to be proactive about the maintenance and management of their health, then it would clearly be necessary to provide equal amounts of access to personal health records, no matter where a person was located in the province.
Another opposition member, Andrea Horwarth, leader of the NDP, stated that at a minimum, it was necessary for fees to be low and regulated, which would be a compromise if they were not completely removed from the health care system.
