Note: This post is written jointly by those who signed it below. The structure of the user board dictates that it must appear under someone?s name, so I agreed to post it under mine. While I fully agree with its contents, the post could equally have been put up by any of the other signers. Jon Schreiber (JBS).
Major changes have taken place in Amazing Chart?s privacy and confidentiality policy. The undersigned strongly disagree with those changes and want to be sure that all AC users are aware of this issue, and encourage you to express your feelings here and to company management.
There are a number of aspects of this issue, so please take a few moments to read and digest this information.
1. It has always been AC?s policy to give us, the providers, strict control and ownership over our clinical data. This policy was stated verbally and in writing by Jon Bertman, and until very recently appeared to be supported by the current management. The concept is most clearly stated in the company EULA.
2. This policy has several important implications. If AC goes out of business, the data belongs to your practice. If we change to a different EMR, the data is ours, and we cannot be charged to gain access to it. (Believe it or not, this is not the policy of some EMR?s; they charge large sums for you to get your own records and data). It also means that our data cannot be sold. (Again, this is not universal in the world of EMR?s). A strong privacy policy demonstrates the appropriate recognition of our hard work, since we are the ones who obtain the information from our patients, and we enter it into the program: this is our intellectual property, not the company?s. Company refusal to sell our data also demonstrates respect for our patients? privacy; it insures that we are the guardians of this private information, and we can be sure to take the steps that we believe are appropriate to protect it.
3. In mid-2013, AC revised the EULA which was presented to reflect the company?s purchase by Pri-Med. The company announced this, providing a list of the ?few substantive changes? that were made. This announcement mentioned that a BAA (business associate agreement) was added to the EULA, but made no mention of a change to the privacy policy. In fact, two changes occurred. First, the old version said ?AmazingCharts will not sell, trade, transmit, or provide any clinical data to insurers, pharmaceutical companies, attorneys, governmental agencies, or any other third-party except with your expressed permission?. The new version adds the phrase, ?or as permitted by law?". These five words fundamentally change the policy and allow AC to sell our data at will, to whomever they choose.
The second change comes with the addition of the BAA, which is added to the EULA. It states, ?"De-identified Information. Business Associate [that is, Amazing Charts] may use or disclose health information, which has been De-identified in accordance with 45 CFR ? 164.514, in order to create comparative databases or to perform statistical analysis and for such other lawful purposes.? This explicitly gives the company the right to sell our data.
4. Whether you are consciously aware of this or not, every time you log onto AC, you are agreeing to the EULA. This is stated just below where you enter your user name and password. The EULA is housed as a pdf file in the Amazing Charts folder in your program file. If you are currently on V6.3.3 or below, you are operating under the old EULA. If you are using or if you upgrade to any version higher than 6.3.3, you are agreeing to allow AC to sell all of your patient data to whomever they choose.
5. The undersigned feel strongly that this change in policy is wrong. Elements of the change may not even be legal (since the company is trying to apply the policy to all AC users, even those using versions where the old EULA was the only one they have ever seen). We believe that this data belongs to us, the physicians and other providers using AC, and that it is a violation of our trust for the company to change this policy. Even worse, it was changed without notification and buried in the EULA/BAA.
6. We encourage you to make your feelings known on this issue. Please do so in the following ways:
1. Post your opinions here
2. Jon Squire has asked that concerned users contact him to discuss the issue. Please email him at jsquireATamazingcharts.com (change AT to @) to express your opinion. In fact, he is willing to speak to people by phone; he allowed me to share his phone number for this purpose. If you feel strongly enough that you want to speak to him directly, please PM me and I will give that to you.
3. Go to AC?s facebook page and make your feelings known there (we have posted this message there as well.
4. Please contact other AC users that you may know and make them aware of this issue, and encourage them to express their opinions, as above.
If you have not yet upgraded beyond V6.3.3, you may not want to do so. When you log-on to AC after upgrading, the company says that you are agreeing to these changes (even if you have not read them).
Signed,
Jon Schreiber
Bev Kelsey
Donna Dow
Wendell Wheeler
Jim Legan
Marty Holt
Ira Braverman
Dave Dickson
Gino Freeman
Pete Sundwall
