Doctor shoppers' rights: privacy or lunacy?

To the Editor: I wish to draw attention to a draconian anomaly in the National Health Act 1953 (Cwlth).

All GPs encounter patients "shopping" for narcotics and/or tranquillisers. The Doctor Shopper phone line (which enabled GPs to rapidly obtain information from the Health Insurance Commission to identify non-genuine patients) was a boon in guiding GPs' management of such situations. Concern over the new private sector amendments to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cwlth) led to an examination of the legal standing of the Doctor Shopper phone line, and it has now been cancelled.

Concerned GPs are now limited to requesting that a "patient" sign a voluntary release of their Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme record. This tells the "patient" that they have been rumbled, and they move on to the next practice on their list.

If they have signed the Privacy Release Form, then the GP will receive a printout of the drugs they have received under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in the previous six months. This is accompanied by a letter informing the doctor that he or she "cannot make a record of, divulge or communicate to any person, any information with respect to the affairs of the person whose information has been released. To do so attracts a penalty of $5000 and/or imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years".