Named Amazon Clinic, the healthcare service offers low cost doctor’s appointments that can help users get prescriptions for a variety of illnesses ranging from Covid-19 to infections of any kind. Prices for appointments are as low as $30. Hence, many patients are flocking to the service because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making healthcare more affordable to them.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that using this service could result in massive privacy violations for consumers. That is actually to be expected from a company like Amazon, but the extent of the privacy violations are shocking nonetheless.
Most patients are protected under HIPAA which legally compels doctors to protect your medical information and only share it with those who have the legal authority to request it and have procured a warrant beforehand.
In spite of the fact that this is the case, Amazon Clinic has a completely different legal form that actively mentions how HIPAA will not apply. Instead, Amazon will have carte blanche over any and all data that it collects with Amazon Clinic. This data will likely be used for advertising purposes, but the lack of HIPAA protection does not bode well for users of the service with all things having been considered and taken into account.
Amazon is essentially asking you to voluntarily waive your right to doctor patient confidentiality, and the company is justifying this by saying that Amazon Clinics is a third party software. However, many are criticizing this legal form and the monetization of sensitive data pertaining to health conditions and the like. The corporation will need to prove that it can be trusted with this data before users will feel comfortable sharing it.
H/T: WP
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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World
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