Medical Quips

I think this whole HIPAA thing has gone too far.

HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and is supposed to, among other things, protect your privacy when it comes to health care information.

I can assure you that when I recently ordered some pharmaceutical refills online, my right to privacy was *certainly* protected. Here's a bit of the confirmation email my drugstore sent me:

"The following refills have been sent to the {store name} that you selected, along with your preferred pick-up date and time:

Patient Name: ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********
Rx ******** ********

Store Location:
********
********, ********
********
********

Pick-up Date and Time:
Friday May 23, 2008 at 8:00 pm"

It's a shame none of those pills will give me ESP.

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MEDICAL QUIPS

We've reached the point where now 4 out of 5 doctors recommend another doctor.

I'm amazed at the progress science is making in cancer research. Every day it seems they discover something else that causes it.

My wife takes so many iron tablets the only time she feels good is when she's facing magnetic north. The kids have started arguing over her mineral rights.

Miracle Drug: anything a child will take without screaming.

Hospital bills are now divided into parts and labor.

If laughter really was the best medicine, HMOs would find a way to charge for it.

Virus is a Latin word that means "your guess is as good as mine."

The folks at Hallmark have made get-well cards so much fun to read, people are trying to get sick!

Penicillin has been called a wonder drug. Because anytime a doctor wonders what you have, that's what you get.

I saw a new side effect warning for the latest drug on the market: bankruptcy.

[surgically removed from antion.com]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "Medicine is the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence." (James Bryce)

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