Jonathan Bell reports:
Patients from Bermuda Healthcare Services and the Brown-Darrell Clinic met John Rankin, the Governor, yesterday to demand the return of medical records seized by police.
[…]
The files were taken when authorities raided both clinics, owned by former Progressive Labour Party premier Ewart Brown, more than two years ago.
The records were removed as part of a police investigation into allegations that the clinics ordered unneeded diagnostic imaging scans to boost profits.
The Bermuda Police Service were allowed to copy the files of about 150 patients and the courts ruled last month that they could be accessed for anonymous review.
Read more on The Royal Gazette.
Government has a right — and a need — to review patient records at times as part of investigating fraud by clinics or providers. We’ve seen that here in the U.S., too. So I won’t say that law enforcement can/should never seize records. But is there some reason that a special master couldn’t have been appointment to pseudoanonymize the identity information of the patients so that the investigation could continue but without the patients’ names and identiy information attached to the files?