Joint Committee on Health Care Financing held a hearing on several bills related to data mining (S. 17, S. 19, H. 109, and H. 110). These bills prevent pharmaceutical companies from buying doctors prescribing records from pharmacies and using that information to target their marketing to physicians. Jasmin Weaver spoke about the need to protect patient privacy and gave the example of CVS/Caremark marketing on behalf of Merck to their pharmacy patients. When asked by Senator Candaras, Representative Grant and Representative DAmico, why this practice was not a violation of HIPAA, Weaver and Wilkinson replied that this practice is a loophole under HIPAA and is actually allowed. This law will close that loophole for Massachusetts.
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