The same people who designed the credit score for your finances are now developing a similar system that will be available to medical professionals, including doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and other health care professionals.

The project, dubbed “MedFICO” in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive.

Several published reports have described Healthcare Analytics product as a MedFICO score, computed in a way that would be familiar to those who’ve used credit scores. The firm is gathering payment history information from large hospitals around the country, according to a magazine called Inside ARM, aimed at “accounts receivable management” professionals. It will then analyze that data to predict how likely patients will be to pay future medical bills. As with credit reports and scores, patients who’ve failed to pay past bills will be deemed less likely to pay future bills.

Hurley did say, however, that hospitals will not use the Healthcare Analytics product before patients receive medical treatment, and it will have no impact on medical decisions. He also pointed to federal law that makes it illegal for hospitals to refuse treatment to patients in their emergency rooms, regardless of a person’s ability to pay.

Uh, okay.  Since you say it isn’t going to happen, it won’t.  It’s not like people have ever had a peek at the records before they were supposed to and no one has ever been refused treatment because they couldn’t pay.

This could also be used against a patient after ER care.  If it is assumed that the system won’t be used until after the ER visit, it would be very easy to use abuse the system and deny follow-up treatment or admittance to a hospital.

Linda Foley, who runs the Identity Theft Resource Center, also said any kind of medical risk scoring would run into a thicket of federal laws designed to protect consumers. It’s not clear if such a score would be covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other credit-related laws that grant consumers the right to see their own credit reports and scores. The information may also be covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which restricts the use of patients’ private information…She also pointed to the problem of Medical ID theft, which now hits 250,000 people each year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Identity theft victims frequently find it difficult to clean their credit reports of errors; she feared medical ID theft victims might face the same fate.

What is unclear is what will happen when the system is no longer used just for a medical credit score?  We already face a similar situation with FICO scores that are used for car insurance, apartment rentals, and some employment.

This system is going to result in many malpractice lawsuits.  Hospitals will end up paying millions to people who were mistreated.  Of course, most of those who are mistreated will be dead because the hospital decided that the parents couldn’t afford to pay for their child’s treatment.  The hospital will toss some cash, say they’re sorry that a kid is dead, and move on to the next case.  For basic medical needs, those that can’t get coverage or help are going to run to the ER, where, theoretically, they cannot be denied services.  The ER will be so overwhelmed that when real emergencies arise, people may die because the ER staff is too busy taking care of Johnny and his runny nose.