To the editor:

Do you think your medical information is private? You might think so if you, as millions of other Americans, have signed an acknowledgment of receiving a copy of your privacy rights under HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

As someone whose fax-equipped home phone number is one digit off a doctors’ office fax machine, I can assure you that your information is not as private as you might think and hope. We have received scores of faxes intended for the doctors that detail named individuals’ lab reports, radiology reports and prescription requests.

We don’t want this information. We have called the offending pharmacies, nursing homes and hospital, but there are too many humans not paying close enough attention to their dialing. We contacted the doctors’ office and suggested they get a number that perhaps would be less easily confused. The doctors didn’t respond.

So the faxes — with your private medical information — keep rolling in as I suppose they will continue to roll until medical providers get serious about taking the steps necessary to assure the privacy they keep promising us.

Janet Majure,

Lawrence