Back in April, I wrote about my adventures with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). I had run into a specious HIPAA barrier when the on­col­ogy practice I treat at initially refused to email me my laboratory results, saying HIPAA did not allow emails. Several readers shared comments about their own ex­peri­ences and a few expressed interest in the memo I presented to my oncologist addressing my HIPAA right.

Before I write and before you read another sentence about HIPAA, let me make this disclaimer: The in­­for­ma­tion con­tained in this …

HIPAA. We, or at least those of us living in the United States, all know the five-letter acronym even if we can’t tell you what the letters stand for. Passed in 1996, the Health Insurance Porta­bility and Account­ability Act has been with us for more than two decades.

And we all know about HIPAA, even if we don’t know it. Any­time any one of us goes to a hospital or medical center for testing or x-rays or surgery, registration staff will ask, “Do you want a copy of your HIPAA rights?”

HIPAA …