Are EHR Vendors Holding Patient Data Hostage?

A couple years ago, we reported on hackers who stole and encrypted consumer medical records and demanded payment to “release” the records (see A New Twist: EHR Extortion). This is clearly a criminal act – along with the very significant hacking of health care recordkeeping systems that has appeared in the popular press over the past few months – Premera Blue Cross Healthcare Breach Affects 11 Million, Highmark: 51,000 Pennsylvania Customers Affected By Anthem Data Breach, and 30,000 Rhode Islanders Hit By Health Data Breaches.

But there is another controversy over access to consumer health records where the issues are . . .