accessing your medical records

The following was written for posting on a group site where contributors post concerns and comments about psychiatry, psychiatric treatment and the mental health/illness industry [call it as you see it]. Since the subject matter may have a more universal interest, I have co-posted it here as well.

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I work as a human rights abuse investigator. Asking for copies of records is part of what I advise clients on as a component of the job. I do not personally have the resources to assist individual case requests between people and specific institutions, but I may be able to help walk you through the process you'll go through to get your records.

Each state has different rules related to seeking records but both state and federal [USA] laws allow for you to get copies of your records. Always ask for them in writing, so to have documentation as to when you made the inquiry.

Agencies and individual treaters may be legally allowed to charge you a per-page copying fee. If you are indigent or in a facility ask a public defender or a legal advocate for assistance in getting the fee waived. I'll talk about legal advocates later in this posting.

If you are writing to an institution, then write directly to Medical Records department. If you are writing to an individual treater, the request goes directly to the treater. Most medical records offices are permitted 30 to 45 days to get the records copied and to you.

You might be required to sign a waiver that states, since you are personally getting copies of the record, that the institution or treater releasing the record is no longer responsible for protecting the confidentiality of the material you obtain from them.

If you want to keep your records as confidential, ask an attorney, a clergy person, or another licensed clinician to obtain them on your behalf. People working in each of those occupations are generally obliged by law to keep confidential any records they obtain about a client or former client.

Every state in the USA has an office of Protection & Advocacy. if you have trouble getting records, you can contact them to help you. To find out where your state's P&A Office is check the links at the NAPAS website [ http://www.napas.org/ ]. NAPAS is the National Disability Rights Network for Protection & Advocacy.

In many states, the only legal limit placed on obtaining your records would be if the treating physician is willing to document ~ in writing ~ that the requesting party is going to become "...an imminent danger to oneself or others or would rapidly deteriorate in their clinical stability...". This is actually a rather tough standard to prove, so it is likely that you would be able to obtain your record.

If you are still in an inpatient setting, you may ask to see your records, but someone will be likely required to sit with you while you look at the chart. This can be handy if you want to seek specific information [clinical assessments and consultation reports, for example] without actually paying to get the record. It may be prudent to ask to see the record, so that you won't be paying for copies of pages that are irrelevant, unreadable or blank.

If you are asking for records related to a lawsuit, an agency or a physician is legally obliged to provide them. again, they still may be permitted to charge a fee for copying and getting them to you.

more firewood art

four artists

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Mark Powell. I came across an assortment of sketches done on the backs of old envelopes, at the Humanitari weblog and was impressed. Regrettably, there was little else there [not even a link ] that could then sate my whetted appetite for information. So I googled the man.
   First I found this: Mark Powell, artist. His comments are succinct: "From Leeds now in London. I draw with a Biro pen, i paint with anything. I often run into the sea. // Archive / Art Prints For Sale / Original artwork for sale / facebook / e-mail."
   Apparently working with conventional pens, his work is striking in its detail. I wish I knew more about what inspires him.
   In the search, I also found a different artist with the name of Mark Powell, whose site said: "I have been working primarily on creating miniature environments where imaginary beings evolve, devolve, consume, excrete, multiply and decay.". So as not to confuse the two, I shall have to review his work on another occasion.

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Lily Mae Martin. Lily's work is predominantly figurative and she often likes to explore the division between high and low art, taking her influences from renaissance painters through to contemporary graphic artists. She works mostly in the mediums of oils, ink and pencil.
   Influences include Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud.
   From her website: The "...intention is not to unsettle the viewer, [but to] portray people in an honest, raw and emotional way that often has been described as "confronting" and "brutally beautiful".
   Ms. Martin's first solo exhibition in three years, Brutally Beautiful featuring paintings created in Berlin over the past year, as well as drawings from her blog project Berlin Domestic, opens May 5th at the Neonchocolate Gallery, Lychener Str. 23, Berlin, Germany.
   You can read Ms. Martin's thoughts on her blog.

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Anna Schuleit. After graduating from art school in 1998 she worked on two site-specific installations: Habeas Corpus at the abandoned Northampton State Hospital (2000), and Bloom for the closing of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (2003).
   Her oeuvre includes ephemeral installation pieces as well as huge paintings that may appear as abstractions until seen from another angle [as seen in the "Just A Rumor" piece at left, installed at UMASS Amherst Fine Arts Center in 2010 ].
   She often collaborates with musicians, and has a keen sensitivity for producing works - with empathy - that evoke the pain, angst and psychic isolation that someone forced to live in a mental institution at times has had to endure. An angst, I note, not borne from any symptoms of "mental illness" but from the lived institutional experience itself.
   I liken her works about mental institutions, as applying an artist's eye, and ear, to describe what Erving Goffman more dispassionately described in his landmark book Asylums.

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Daniel Lovely. From his website: "I've found the human element to be my greatest inspiration. I strive to remain sensitive to my experiences. To remember the world through the eyes of a child, and explore the depths of myself without judgement."
   Working in soft pastels [a medium that I admire but don't work in myself ], sculpture, digital photography and... hairstyling and design. Lovely's work is both bold and sensuous. Many of his images are erotic, though not necessarily explicit. Also among his repertoire are a range of abstract/non-representational work as well.
   Lovely has been published in The National Erotic Signature Publication. His paintings can be found on permanent public exhibition at The Kinsey Institute of Art, and in private collections around the world.
   You can read Daniel Lovely's thoughts on his blog.

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All images above are © of each individual artist. Permission should be sought from the artists themselves if interested in purchase or commercial use.

surveillance + cyber spying

CISPA — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act — would cut a loophole in all existing privacy laws allowing the government to suck up data on everyday Internet users. We can't let that happen.

 • The ubiquitous of security cameras is become. Few seem to notice them everywhere, though some still express concerns about their presence.
 • We are in that Orwellian world of Winston Smith's 1984, even if we fail to see it.
 • In 1984 George Orwell provided compelling reasons for the people of the 21st century to, much as we did in the 60's, question authority.
 •  Orwell's protagonist Winston holds the thoughts of questioning unbridled authority dear but because of how society has been allowed to evolve he must be careful with even his own thoughts.
 • Not far from where we are ourselves, in a society full of cameras, snoops and neighbors eager to tell on you for "something", even if all that is means you seem to be - somehow - different.


 • Privacy rights watchdog site Torrent Freak writes:

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) hasn’t received a whole lot of media attention yet, but it continues to pick up support from legislators.
   The bill is touted as being much worse than SOPA when it comes to privacy invasions.
   Just as SOPA [the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act ] claimed to put an emphasis on piracy, CISPA also appears to include the infringement of intellectual property as a security threat warranting access to user data. The definition of “theft or misappropriation of private or government information” is given four times throughout the bill H.R. 3523.
   Under CISPA, Internet providers and other companies could be expected to hand user data over to government agencies and even other companies upon request.
   According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), it “would let companies spy on users and share private information with the federal government and other companies with near-total immunity from civil and criminal liability. It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.”
   The EFF is concerned that, due to the vague language used in the bill, “a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cyber-security threats.”
   After the huge public outcry against SOPA and ACTA, it is hard to imagine that CISPA will sit well with the greater online community.
   And is it really needed in the first place?

 • Perhaps the most banal, yet clearly controversial, surveillance camera is the traffic enforcement camera [no, that is not one shown on the right  ].
 • The automated traffic camera is, essentially, an automated ticketing machine. Newer cameras have automatic number plate recognition systems that can be used for the detection of average speeds.
 •  These raise concerns over loss of privacy and the potential for governments [...not to mention auto insurance companies and other corporate snoops ] to establish mass surveillance of vehicle movements and therefore by association ~ the movement of the vehicle's owner.
 • Is this about encouraging driving safety ...or is it more about generating income for cash-strapped municipalities?
 • Even former Congressman Bob Barr opines it's really "...all about money." and that the "...love of revenue-producing electronic devices knows no partisan bounds; local officials of Republican persuasion are just as quick -- if not quicker -- to install these intrusive but profitable devices as their Democrat counterparts. " Barr also cites studies that show that traffic surveillance camera set-ups may actually cause more accidents than prevent them. So much for citizen safety. Oh, and Barr's cite is from 2004, eight years ago.
 • What to do about this? The proverbial horse is already out of the barn on the matter, as more and more states implement surveillance camera posts everywhere. Well, it's also about unwanted [and unwarranted ] intrusions on citizen privacy.
 • CISPA — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act — would cut a loophole in all existing privacy laws allowing the government to suck up data on everyday Internet users. We can't let that happen. The Electronic Freedom Foundation is working to combat this intrusive bit of corporate promoted legislation. You need to help, too! Contact your Congressman to object to government and corporate cyber spying.
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