CREGIER@UPEI.CA (Sharon Cregier) (11/16/90)
Index Number: 11725 [Reprinted with permisson -- see copyright notice at end of article] Computer records, even erroneous ones, allow insurance companies to discriminate against applicants and clients. The following is a copy of an article in the August 1, 1990 issue of the Christian Science Monitor (Boston) article, FROM DATABASE TO BLACKLIST, section heading: Insurance risks targeted. Perhaps one of the most mysterious consumer-reporting companies is MIB, formerly the Medical Information Bureau, in Brookline, Mass. "It's a very difficult company to learn very much about," says Massachusetts state senator Lois Pines. "They don't want people to know that they exist or what they do." "The purpose of MIB is to help keep the cost of insurance down for insurance companies and for consumers by preventing losses that would occur due to fraud or omissions," says MIB's president, Neil Day. MIB's files are used by more than 750 insurance companies throughout the United States and Canada. MIB stores its records in a specially coded format, which the company refuses to share with regulators, legislators, or consumer groups. There are codes for medical conditions and mental health, as well as nonmedical conditions like "hazardous sport participation" and "hazardous driving records." In the past, says Robert Ellis Smith, editor of the Privacy Journal, other MIB codes have stood for "sexual deviance" and "sloppy appearance." Mr Day refuses to release a list of the current codes used by his company, saying that to do so would compromise his firm's confidentiality. Although MIB will tell a person if he or she has medical records on file, it will send those records only to a medical professional. The company receives 15,000 requests by individuals to have their report sent to their physician every year, says Day. Between 250 and 300 people argue with their reports. A person applying for life insurance enjoys none of the privacy rights and protections that a person applying for credit does, says Josh Kratka, an attorney with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG). "MIB has agreed to abide by [the FCRA]. They will send those codes to your physician. Your insurance company is not under those obligations....If you are denied life insurance, you have no way of knowing whether it was legitimate or based on an error in your records that is going to follow you around for the rest of your life," says Mr Kratka. In one case, says Kratka, a Mass. man told his insurance company that he had been an alcoholic but had managed to remain sober for several years and regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The insurance company denied him coverage and forwarded a code to MIB: "alcohol abuse; dangerous to health." The next company the man applied to for insurance, Kratka says, learned of the "alcohol abuse" through the information bureau and charged the man a 25% higher rate. In another case he says, a clerical error caused a woman's records at MIB to say that she carried the AIDS virus. "It was only after unusual intervention by the state regulatory board," because the woman worked for a physician, that the records were corrected, Kratka says. MASSPIRG has filed state legislation that would extend many of the FCRA's protections to medical records. As health-care costs continue to rise, say experts, consumers can expect less and less privacy regarding their medical records. "Doctors, in order to get paid, are being asked more and more to identify a chargeable condition in their clients....The breach in confidentiality is a natural consequence of the way in which third party billing of physician's time is structured in this country," says Dr Paul Billings, chief of genetic medicine at the Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco. No federal law ensures the confidentiality of medical records. Some hospitals, Mr Smith says, have even started using them for target marketing. Reprinted with permission from the Christian Science Monitor Copyright 1990 by the Christian Science Publishing Society All rights reserved