If you wonder how a private firm like Docvia can afford to intake, store, document, disburse, update and protect your medical history, personal emergency contacts, health insurance records and more for only $5. per year, don't. It doesn't really happen like that.
InvisibleBracelet.org, or "iB" as the firm likes to call it, appears to have a profit model entirely different than they would have you believe from their very government-looking website. In press releases accommodatingly picked up verbatim by the AP, the Company appears benevolently intervening to assist the American Ambulance Association, among others, with the capability to virtually diagnose your medical problems, call your wife, text your kids and probably take out the trash, all while you are on the way to the hospital, in the capable hands of a paramedic to whom you have granted all this data.
The magic pill to perform this miracle is iB's online storage of your information, and its provision of documents to carry in your wallet to prove it. All for $5. per year.
Or not.
According to iB's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy:
If you want to opt out, "[iB] stores all electronic communications...your health information, contact information and financial information for a period of at least ten years."
"Locator information is your name, electronic mailing address, physical address, and/or other data that allows someone to identify you."
"Docvia and your internet service provider (ISP) may use locator information as is necessary to enforce any of the terms of the Docvia Terms of Use."
"Docvia works with many business partners in making the iB service available to consumers."
"Certain features of the iB service may be used in conjunction with other Docvia products, and those features may share information..."
"Docvia may assign a Member's rights under the program with or without notice to such member."
"Aggregate information may be provided or sold to third parties."
Docvia and iB appear to be just another firm masquerading as a public service provider in an effort to gain valuable data under misleading marketing practices. This practice has itself come to be known as noncompetitive privacy policy.
Noncompetitive privacy policy is demonstrated whenever a company gathers valuable information from customers, for resale, without acknowledging the value gained, and obtaining the data under misleading circumstances.
Insurance companies and their investigators are certainly salivating to become 'partners' according to Docvia's privacy policy. This would allow them to track you using your IP address, mobile phone, and the mobile phones and contact numbers of those in your emergency contact list.
Customer lists, blinded as to specific health records, can easily be sold to insurers, health provider networks and more. The list goes on and on.
And they even get $5. from the consumer.
You write, "Docvia and iB appear to be just another firm masquerading as a public service provider in an effort to gain valuable data under misleading marketing practices. This practice has itself come to be known as noncompetitive privacy policy."
ReplyDeleteI'd simply like to clarify that while I appreciate your interest in promoting patient privacy and security, you have mis-characterized our company and service and I can understand why this may have happened, based on your background and the fact that we had inadvertently left in a particular privacy term that was drafted by our legal counsel and rejected by our management team. In fact, this privacy term was removed at the end of December and the update was posted on the iB homepage, which is our standard practice.
The leading EMS providers in the U.S. will tell you that iB is a voluntary service that is filling a critical gap in emergency care. This gap has been left open for too long. By giving people the opportunity to share a limited amount of vital health information with licensed and trained EMS providers during medical emergencies, they can reduce costly medical errors and delays -- and just as importantly -- ensure that the patient's designated emergency contacts be notified instantly.
For five bucks a year, iB could help save your life in a medical emergency. It really is that simple. We are not in this business of aggregating and selling our customer's data. We never have and we never will.