No News Today

Here is an interesting disclaimer at the head of a newspaper report on a clinic that does methadone treatment:

Editors note: Due to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, medical service providers are prohibited from releasing information about a patient without the patient’s prior consent. The Southern Indiana Treatment Center and its parent company, CRC Health Group, were cooperative with The Evening News and The Tribune in identifying sources for this story, but due to the privacy rights of the clinic’s patients, the newspapers have no way to verify whether the patients quoted in this story are representative of the clinic’s patients at-large.

I am constantly amazed at how useful HIPAA has become. It truly answers all needs for obsfucation.