Final fight over My Health Record opt-out period

Health Minister Greg Hunt has bowed to pressure to extend the My Health Record opt-out period as the hotline for doing so goes into meltdown.

Health Minister Greg Hunt has bowed to pressure to extend the My Health Record opt-out period as the hotline for doing so goes into meltdown.

In an 11th hour decision today, Minister Hunt confirmed the government would delay the opt out deadline until January 31 after the Senate voted to introduce the 10 week extension.

The Senate pushed for the delay over concerns the record would be rolled out before privacy and security protections were legislated by Parliament.

“Today the Government worked with the Senate crossbench to extend the opt-out period for My Health Record,” the Minister announced over Twitter.

“The opt-out period will be extended until January 31, 2019, however, it’s important to note that people can opt-out at any time.”

Every Australian was due to get a My Health Record from Friday unless they opted out by 3am on Friday morning.

The government was forced to extend the deadline after pressure from key consumer groups, GPs, Labor and the crossbench over privacy concerns.

The hotline to opt out went into meltdown and the online portal crashed this morning as Australians rushed to opt out before the deadline.

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Health Minister Greg Hunt had previously rejected calls to extend the opt-out period beyond November 15.

The Australian Digital Health Agency responded to reports the opt out system had crashed today, saying it was still operational but a high volume of calls had “slowed the system down”.

“We are experiencing high demand, which has slowed the system down, and some people have experienced difficulties opting out this morning. These issues have now been resolved,” it said in a statement.

The ADHA added that it had anticipated the higher volume of calls and had added extra staff to operate the helpline.

It also said a “call back feature” had been added to allow people to leave their details and a customer service representative would return their call to process their request to opt out “over the coming days” and “may be after the opt out period ends”.

But shortly after the ADHA released the statement, the site was still down.

My Health Record opt out system was unable to handle the number of requests today. Picture: Supplied

Before the 10 week extension was agreed to this afternoon, the Senate rejected Labor’s bid to delay the opt-out period for 12 months.

The Senate is continuing to debate the My Health Record legislation today, including amendments to prevent law enforcement agencies from accessing any My Health Records without a warrant and to allow Australians to delete part or all of their record permanently, rather than records being kept on a government site for 130 years which is the case under current legislation.

The extra measures include:

• Boosting fines for misuse of a My Health Record from two to five years’ jail;

• More than double fines for individuals to $315,000;

• Stronger protections against the misuse of records in domestic violence situations;

• Prohibiting employers from accessing potential employees records.

Many Australians have been sceptical of the My Health Record system.

The Australian Digital Health Agency has told News Corp that My Health Records won’t be created for those Australians who haven’t opted out immediately from Thursday but will be established within weeks.

“The records will be created before the end of 2018, following the end of the opt-out period on 15 November,” an ADHA spokesman said prior to the Senate approving the extension.

“The Agency will advise on the exact date following the end of opt out period, and following the reconciliation period for the processing of paper forms.”

Former Australian Medical Association president and newly elected independent member for Wentworth Kerryn Phelps last night urged Australians to seriously consider opting out of the My Health Record until Parliament dealt with the privacy and security concerns.

“There is widespread confusion surrounding the rollout of My Health Record,” Dr Phelps told News Corp.

Kerryn Phelps is urging Australians to seriously consider opting out of the My Health Record.

“There are serious questions over privacy and security that need to be debated and legislated by the Parliament.

“The Government has so far refused to delay the rollout and it’s important that we get this right.

“The simple reality is that the House of Representatives doesn’t sit again until November 26 and that is beyond the current opt-out date.

“The Government needs to take seriously the decision of the Senate to recommend an extension of the opt-out date.

“Anyone who has legitimate concerns over My Health Record now has little choice but to opt out until these problems are addressed.”

Shadow Health Minister Catherine King added: “The My Health Record opt-out period must not end until the clean-up legislation has passed the Parliament.”

“A 12-month extension will also give the Government time to reach every Australian with its new public information campaign, so that people can make a fully informed choice about whether they want to opt-out of the scheme - or participate in the system and enjoy the benefits of a properly implemented My Health Record.”

Mr Hunt had previously rejected calls to extend the opt-out period beyond November 15.

A spokeswoman for the Minister previously told News Corp: “My Health Record was designed to save lives and has the backing of all the major medical groups including the AMA.”

She added: “With My Health Record, patients have complete control over their medical records for the first time.

“Patients can direct their health care professional not to upload a particular record.

“They can also set pin blocks on particular records as well as restrict access on who view a certain record.

“In addition, they can subsequently delete certain parts of their records once they have been upload.”

About 1.147 million have opted out of the system so far. Six million already have the record and a further 300,000 opted in the past four months.