Privacy ?

ajax2018

Making this short and sweet.
Bankruptcy filed in 2015.
Chose to not file against medical debt owned and instead all medical bills were paid off personally and kept up on over the course of past few years.
Fast forward. Go to same doc office as years prior, when doc comes in, but upon this visit when he opens the MEDICAL history file, someone has written in HUGE RED letters across the top BANKRUPTCY.
Noticeable from across the room!
So visible to anyone who is in that office who pulls the chart and truthfully there were never any bankruptcy claims on medical bills and if there should be a note on anything regarding billing why would it be across the top of a medical history chart???
Is this a privacy concern? Did the office cross the line?? Why would the office even have knowledge of the bankruptcy filed back in 2015 and just now plaster it on the records making one feel shamed and humiliated!

Paul_DNAP

Your bankruptcy is a matter of public record, and it is not something you can keep private.

TheGardener

Are you in the UK? If you were made BR then all debts would have been included in the BR. you don't get to choose which debts to include - that would be seen as preferential payments which is illegal.
However, if you mean that you did not have any debt on your medical insurance, and chose to keep paying it and it was accepted as part of your SOA and IPA calculations then that's different.

It would be unusual for the OR to have contacted them if they were not creditors though so I would ask the medical practice why they want to keep out of date/historical personal data about you on file...?

ajax2018

No, not in UK and in the US you can choose which debts to a degree.



Also, I realize it is public info buy WHY would it be plastered on me medical chart rather than my billing chart? Also, you have to really be digging deep to want to find public record of someones bankruptcy.
And, out of curiosity, if the bankruptcy did not even effect the doctors office, why would that be information they need. Bills were paid, always have been paid (collected at the time of service for co-pay).

TheGardener

You wouldn't have to dig hard in the UK - the information is stored forever on record at the London Gazette Newspaper - before the days of the internet, most local papers printed details of every local BR each week. They don't do that now but its easy enough to find.

I don't know what the privacy laws are like in the US, but recent changes in the UK to data protection law means you could legitimately challenge any organisation who holds the record of your BR to justify why they need it and when they intend to delete it.