[UFO Chicago] HIPAA regulations?

[ray at wardtechnologies.com]

I am not in the health care industry but am pretty familiar with HIPPA regulations.  HIPPA generally only applies to protected health information.  I am not sure that an email address that does not link you to actual health information qualifies.   If you got SPAM specific to your condition, you probably would have a beef.

It is still a bad thing for them to do but they might not have breached any regulations.

You of course should check out their email privacy policy and complain if they say they do not sell email addresses.

Ray

Ray Ward
Ward Technologies, LLC
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "Eric Ellington" <e.ellington at gmail.com>

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 16:22:16 
To:"UFO Chicago Mailing List" <ufo at ufo.chicago.il.us>
Subject: [UFO Chicago] HIPAA regulations?


I was recently in the hospital, I'm fine and not dying now. Sadly
while I was in I had to fill out and sign about 50 different forms. A
few I put an email address on when requested. Guess what I got in my
inbox today.

"

Fully Licensed Medical Doctors in the USA

788,489 in total – 17,832 emails

34 primary and secondary specialties

Over a dozen sortable fields

This week's special price =  $494


*** Recieve the data below without charge when you buy the Medical
Doctor Database above ***

List of American Pharma Companys execs
Personal email addresses (50000 in total) and names for execs

American Hospital Database
more than 23k hospital administrators in over 7k hospitals [worth over
$300 alone)

US Dentist Contact List
597,000 dentists and dental services ( a $300 value!)

Contact List of US Chiropractors
Complete data for all chiropractors in the USA (a $249 value)

(206) 600-4472


above valid thru Nov 9

"

It seems obvious to me that someone after a week harvested my email
address from the hospital I was at.

I know there are a bunch of HIPAA regulations that are supposed to
safeguard your privacy electronically or otherwise. Does anyone work
in the medical industry and know who I can complain to? I checked out
the HIPAA website but still don't know where to really start, or if
anyone will listen.

-- 
Eric Ellington
e.ellington at gmail.com
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