How did my personal medical info get out?

Self | 06/21/2024 | self

[Not_Who_U_Think]

Something very odd happened to me yesterday.

I had noticed a mole on my back that concerned me and rather than wait a few weeks for an appointment, I dropped into my dermatologist for him to have a quick look. He gave me a name for it, "Seborrheic Keratoses", and said it benign and was nothing to worry about. He sent me off with a pamphlet about it.

I had not done any searches online, for either skin cancer in general or for this specific lesion, not now or ever. I have watched cardio docs on Youtube, but it doesn't suggest them often on my YT homepage. You can imagine my shock when I opened YouTube last evening, and up popped a video (first choice) about how to tell if you have one!

Here is the link to video made by a dermatologist over a year ago. It is not a new video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXSJyXW1EHo&t=6s

I honestly don't know what to make of this. I cannot think of any action I took online that indicated an interest in this topic, and the only two people in the room were the doctor and nurse. I suppose it's possible someone leaked the info to big G (owner of YT), but it would be a blatant violation of HIPPA and I can't imagine anyone th the medical field risking that.

Does anyone have an idea of how this medical tidbit got from my doctor's lips into the machine within eight hours? ? This is so specific, so soon after discovery... what the heck is going on?

[GOPJ]

Years ago my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked all of us not to say anything to anyone - but one sister wanted information (while keeping her word) and called the American Cancer Society pretending to have cancer herself. The women who answered her questions kept asking for her name and address to send additional information.

Long story short a few weeks after the call the sister who never had cancer received ads for miracle cancer cures from quacks in Mexico. The sister who had cancer died within two years when she was 39 years old. Lots of bad people in the world. Good people too... Nice to hear that HIPAA is strict about privacy - I wish them the best in that effort..

[Myrddin]

Did you carry your cell phone into the appointment with your doctor? It is likely that the microphone was enabled and some application listening. Did you have location tracking enabled on your phone? That would give a clue that you visited a doctor's office. Lot's of details about your behavior and choices can quietly leak out.

[Not_Who_U_Think]

Nope, I didn’t use my phone for any lookups or use any navigation apps. After all the freeper ideas and thoughts, I think it might have something to do with my insurance carrier. But why are big G and my insurance company talking?

[Uncle Miltie]

Geotracking.

[rlmorel]

I am spitballing here, so take it for what it is worth. We want to examine how YouTube might know how to present you with content automatically that you might act on? Content like videos on "Seborrheic Keratoses" that may have been made by Pfizer with information about the condition, and also makes prominent mention of treatment using that drug? Right? I assume that is what has your head spinning.

How could we draw a line from someone in your Dermatologist's office putting it on a bill for submission, to a website like YouTube (Google) that knows your identity when you login and feeds you information tailored to you?

Again, I have no idea, this is just conjecture. Here is a primer that describes the medical performance and payment process, and this long segment is to show how your information gets into a computer system. And there is a lot of it.

When you see your provider (your Dermatologist) and he sees you and then finishes the report on your visit, his office billing system system creates a bill for submission to your insurance company for payment, and that bill has a multitude of informational items on it that gets sent electronically to your insurer. Name. Address. Email. Cell phone. Date of Birth. Social Security Number. And a huge tranche of other items.

Plus, in addition to all that, you have...the ICD-10 code your Dermatologist applied to your condition of "L82.1" floating in that rich soup of very personal information. THAT piece of information, "L82.1" tells your insurance company or Medicare that the doctor thought you may have after he examined you, which might be "Seborrheic Keratoses". (They may also include an ICD-10 code for what you came in for, which might be an L25.5 (Contact Dermatitis caused by contact with plants which is what you told the person on the phone when you noticed it and thought you might have gotten it from clearing heavy brush on your property)

Also, they have to tell your payor (Insurer) what services they are billing for. For this, they might use what is called a CPT code. It is a special medical code that describes a plethora of medical activities or procedures. In this case let's say you called up, got a fifteen minute appointment with the Dermatologist to take a look, and during the examination, he takes two scrapings of affected areas on your body. Perhaps one scraping from the neck, and one from the scalp. (again, I don't know know anything about Seborrheic Keratoses, but lets say it is a bumpy rash-like thing that might be on a few areas of your body, and they have to get scrapings to send off to Pathology for analysis.

Your Dermatologist says something like this to you: "Hmm. Hm. Okay. This looks like skin condition called "Seborrheic Keratoses". It isn't painful or especially dangerous, but it may be visible to others, and people often have them removed if they are on their face or hands. A very small number of them may become skin cancer. And you will probably get more of them as you get older. Why don't I take a biopsy of them by gently scraping a few, one on your neck and one on the top of your head, and have them analyzed to be sure?"

Then he puts on some gloves, scrapes the areas with some implement and puts the tissue scrapings into some container, writes you a prescription for some cream to rub on it three times a day, and says he will contact you when he gets the results back.

He writes up the notes for the visit, and submits them to a secretary or medical assistant who gets them into a system, and they "close" the case to say they are done treating you for that visit on that day. That night, some background process runs on the computer systems, and all those "closed visits" for the day are collected by the software, and sent to a queue where someone with special skills may analyze the bill further and buff it up for submission, making sure there are no contradictions or inappropriate billing items. Or, they may add additional billing items that didn't get automatically put on the bill.

(NOTE: I am only guessing what CPT codes might be applied, and I just looked these up on some random web page I looked up on Google) you probably had something like these things billed for:

1. CPT Code: 99213 (Office or other outpatient visit for evaluation and management of an established patient for 15 minutes.)
   
   
2. CPT Code: 11102 (Tangential biopsy of skin; single lesion.) (the scraping or biopsy of your neck)
   
   
3. CPT Code-11103 (Tangential biopsy of skin; each separate or additional lesion.) (the scraping or biopsy of your scalp)
   
   
4. CPT Code-T84431 (AI assisted analysis of dermatologic lesions) (NOTE: I just made this up. But something like this might well be employed.)

Each one of these CPT codes has a price associated, a physician effort number, a non-physician effort number, and usually includes in the cost all the specific supplies that might be needed for each one. This tells your Insurer what your Dermatology "Provider" did, and what they expect for reimbursement.

Then they look at the complaint that made you call the doctor which is the "L25.5" (Contact Dermatitis caused by contact with plants) and the "L82.1" tells your insurance company or Medicare that the doctor thought you may have after he examined you, which might be "Seborrheic Keratoses".

This is a lot of information, stored in a database. All that personal and individually defining information, as well as the detailed information about what you went to the doctor for and what was found.

You have an account with YouTube (Google). And it may only have your name, date of birth (for age verification to watch videos) and email address.

But don't you think, if YouTube (Google) had access to some database which might have your name, date of birth, and email address in it, couldn't there be pretty accurate match up?

At some point, if YouTube (Google) has access to a database with that information, is it far-fetched to envision Google running some process that takes username Doe, John (Not_who_u_think) DOB, and email and compares it to a medical billing database or transaction, finding a match, and feeding that user videos or other information.

How would YouTube (Google) get access to a database? I don't know. It might be illegal, for all I know. Someone in CMS (Center for Medicare Services) might give them access.

Or, it could be all legal and above the board. How many people carefully read the Consent Form for treatment at a medical facility? And how many people perfuse the YouTube (Google) agreement when they create their account?

Fewer than one would think. It is possible there could be wholly legal gobbledygook in there that baldly states YouTube (Google) can legally mine systems for your data?

And isn't Google dabbling in the Healthcare space? LINK: What is Google Health?

You get the idea.

There may even be a provision in the so-called "Affordable Care Act" that not only allows and encourages it, but even PAYS for it.

That sounds crazy, but when you realize that By the count of an organization called "The Regulatory Review", the final version of the ACA amounted to 961 pages, or about 475,000 words, which so far have triggered 265 unique rulemaking activities. These regulations translated to almost 9,000 pages, or more than 9,000,000 words, that were finalized by the end of 2019.

There could be anything in that bureaucratic snake pit called the ACA that would allow payors to share information with entities who have signed on to improve care.

[mass55th]

"But why are big G and my insurance company talking?"

Medicare is my primary insurance as I'm an old fart, so the government definitely knows what my ass is up to.

[Adder]

Me too

[Ingtar]

I have had DuckDuckGo searches picked up into adware recently. I was curious and tested search it for some odd things.

[Ingtar]

I get calls from people saying they are from the company I work for all the time. Scam calls, that is. Today I got one from the Dominican Republic, and they identified themself as from my company. They really were for a change!

[gundog]

[SaveFerris]

[Did you have your cell phone with you! Google listens to everything.]

I say Google is basically the NSA (one of their operations).

But then, I'm Trevor.

[alexander_busek]

I'm an old fart, so the government definitely knows what my ass is up to.

Martin Luther really did have a way with words, didn't he?

Regards,

[Revel]

You do know that you no longer have medical privacy anymore don’t you?

You doctor entered all the information about your visit into a computer program(Required by law). That was then shared with insurance companies and the government. And then most likely one those then shared your information with an advertising firm. Nothing is sacred anymore.

[gnickgnack2]

My phone was sitting on the table as I read aloud the “best of” results from a local alternative publisher. I was noting how many times a new distillery was a favorite. The next time I picked up my phone, ads for that distillery were immediately prominent.

[Gaffer]

The billing systems are set up to code-in things like that. From there it gets promulgated everywhere.

[BamaBelle]

Yeah, happens to me all the time. I’m thinking of buying a camper in a few years so watched a few videos about them and now it pops up on my phone ads and YouTube suggestions all the time. Has happened with other topics as well.

[ronniesgal]

all the devices are listening to convos!!!

[MayflowerMadam]

“a phone that can’t be monitored. “

A year or so ago, Bannon and other conservative media were giving “Unplugged Cellular” a lot of attention. James O’Keefe has a testimonial on the web page. It was invented by Erik Prince, “a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, is the founder of Blackwater USA, a private military services contractor.”

https://unplugged.com/

[MayflowerMadam]

“Alexa is listening to you.”

Who on FReerepublic would have Alexa in his home? Seriously!

[redfreedom]

BAN-ONE, you are so correct.

A smart phone can be used to track your location, used to monitor the very words from your mouth whether or not you are actually using the phone, and is a warehouse of information regarding your texts and photos that can be monitored. And so much more, especially when accessing the internet.

As long as a person is carrying one of those things, there is no such thing a privacy. It’s amazing just how stupid the American public is over this. Many of the J6 protesters where nabbed as a result of their cell phone use.

Add cell phone use to social media use and a person is a complete open book to be read by anyone with the skills to hack into these. And that’s a very long list!