Mr. Martinez, when people entrust you with their most private and personal information they expect you to keep it secure. You have a computer; please use it. Scan all paper documents into a digital file on your computer, use contact management software, encrypt all files and disks and make a back up copy of these important files. Store the encrypted backup copy on a secure, remote server or at another physical location, preferably in a burglar-resistant, fire-resistant floor safe or in a bank safe deposit box. Although the law may not yet hold you fully accountable to the HIPAA rules and standards regarding medical records, you should still endeavor to apply them in your practice. Here are some links that you may find helpful:

US Department of Health and Human Services: HIPAA
www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/

Adobe Acrobat
www.acrobat.com
www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html

Nuance: Omnipage and Paperport
www.nuance.com

Ghostscript (Open Source alternative to Acrobat)
www.ghostscript.com/awki

PDFCreator (another Open Source alternative to Acrobat)
www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator

PGP for Home Office and Small Business
www.pgp.com/solutions/homeoffice.html
www.pgp.com/solutions/smb.html

TrueCrypt (Open Source alternative to some PGP software)
www.truecrypt.org

GNU Privacy Guard (another Open Source alternative to some PGP software)
www.gnupg.org

FreeOTFE (another Open Source alternative to some PGP software)
www.freeotfe.org

By the way, if you're looking for other Open Source alternatives to proprietary software, try osalt.com and sourceforge.net.

Pox on the Dist Court judge. He needs to be un - elected.

And Satterberg should fire the silly girl deputy.

Jail and court crap can kill people who are already very sick.

Medical mj is not OK for the common cold, get a clue deputy air head.

"Debilitating and terminal"....those are the words in the law

Nice work Dom...nice reporting

rumor has it the woman who owns the barbershop next door called in the complaint. is there bad blood between her and mr. martinez, or does burning pot well and truly give her a headache? what say ye, dom?

even if someone is smoking pot, what the hell, isn't there real crime to tend to?

It is actually the heisted medical records that I find most disturbing. Nobody there was arrested, the prosecutor has said no charges would be filed, and that the records will be returned.

But now the police have doubtless copied the names and info of all those patients.

The police have no business searching medical records. Period. As soon as they determined that the files were medical records, they should have left them alone. Searching medical records far exceeds the authority of the warrant.

Good info, Dominic.

Also, what yawp @2 said, especially the advice to Martinez.

That's a lot easier said than done. Presumably all of Martinez's patients are seriously ill, which means that their patient records are thousands of pages long. The UW Medical Center has money to burn on hiring people to scan those documents, a small clinic doesn't.

SLOG - We insult your intelligence because we can!

and by "flower", i mean bitch.

And can't they be sued in civil court for damages to the Washington State privacy rights of said persons?

Just wondering.

Now, to the SPD: GET BACK TO WORK FINDING WHO IS TAGGING THE MURALS AND LEAVING TRASH ON OUR STREETS!

Dana

Vintage Jesus in a soup line, I'm glad I don't smoke the shit!

That would be just the first step, each and every one of the patients also have a good civil rights lawsuit against SPD, and also the jackass who called the cops to begin with. You are not going to easily convince me the caller did not know the office was, and is, a legally operated clinic under color of state law, irregardless of whether she likes the law or not...

I hear Canada is hiring cops ...

keshmeshi,

Most clinics like the one operated by Mr. Martinez are not required, nor should they be required to request or maintain a copy of any patient's complete medical history.

So, the expense of maintaining over a thousand pages of medical records in print or digital format is not required. In most cases, a copy of the patient's medical form/prescription for medical marijuana, a copy of any signed agreements for services provided by the clinic and a basic contact management record are all the Mr. Martinez should need to maintain.

We usually find whatever we seek with a sincere desire. You seek obstacles; I seek passage ways. May your path serve you as well as mine has me.

Good journey.

BTW, for any patients who may read this post take a look at Google Health. It launched earlier this year; so, it's still in early stages of development and deployment. It looks like an interesting and promising method of managing some of the pile of medical records and information. If you want to take a look, here's a link:

https://www.google.com/health/html/tour/index.html