Two families have filed suit against Horizon Insurance because their children were denied mental health coverage. The insurance based their decision on the kids’ personal writings on Facebook and MySpace.

This officially proves that NOTHING is sacred. Move over, Google and start selling those private medical records to the highest bidder. It’s only going to take one or two disgruntled employees to open that can of worms…or a nice, fat check on the side. If UCLA Medical Center employees will sell celebrity medical records to the tabloids, you can be sure a Google employee can’t be far behind.

There’s a bizarre technicality in New Jersey. If your mental health problem is biologically based, it’s covered. If it’s emotional, it’s not. When did mental health turn so black and white? I must have missed that press conference where they announced the blood test that shows whether the voices in your head come from a faulty brain, or from the beatings you got as a child. Good to know Jersey has it figured out!

Horizon used that law to deny the coverage, and they got their “evidence” from the blogs.

It’s only starting to become clear how all of this online chattering can come back to haunt you.

One of the main reasons I’ve made the ZapRap.org discussion forums so private is to keep it all from being archived at Google. I can’t say how many times I’ve had frantic emails from folks who came to the boards, used their real names to discuss intimate details of ECT, depression and mental illness…and then Googled themselves a few days before a big job interview. There begins the horror show, and it’s all in black and white for any prospective boss to read.

Now it’s all private, and I encourage people to use a pseudonym. Or at least a first name only.

I think there’s a lot of value in being able to connect with others in similar situations, whether it’s mental health issues or a broken arm. It’s been vital in my life, and the Internet is the one place I can find people who get it, 24/7. Okay, you do have to put up with a consortium of assholes, but there’s always bad with good. It’s also a great place to simply rant and puke out the garbage. (Which is the main purpose of my bloggy blog.)

Until reading about this legal case, I hadn’t really thought that much about insurance companies snooping around. We’ve had some stalkers who followed individuals to the board, and there have been concerns about disability reviewers peeking in. Now I have to worry about insurance companies.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 11:29 pm and is filed under A Nutter's Prattle, Corporation Misery, Mental Health Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.