“The opening anecdote of the e-patient white paper tells of a patient who impersonated a doctor in 1994, to get his hands on an article about an operation he was about to have. He got busted. Two years later episode 139 of Seinfeld had something similar – Kramer impersonates a doctor to try to get Elaine’s medical record.
It aired October 17, 1996. It was a turning point in American healthcare: eight weeks earlier the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) had been signed into law, but the full regulations had not yet been written, so when this aired Elaine did not have a legal right to look at her record.”
Article
Dave deBronkart, KevinMD, 21 August 2010

