How honest do I need to be?
I am seeing a new doctor in about 2 hours. She will be my general practitioner/internist, whatever. I really want to come clean about my alcohol abuse which has been going on since 2009. I've have sober periods of time but I'm still struggling. I think I should tell her because it might affect my health care and/or help with diagnosing any issues I may have. I don't know of any except my high blood glucose at this point. But anyway, I've found that in the health care system the way that everything goes into a central database now that every Tom, Dick, and Harry that has access to that database can pull up my entire medical history and that would include my issues with alcohol that maybe not every person needs to know about. Cutting to the chase I don't want my privacy compromised and I think the HIPPAA rule is a big joke. My common sense tells me to share everything with a doctor if I want to get the best possible care and treatment but I have reservations. What would you do or what have you done?