I just found out yesterday that my entire chart of my medical records was copied and sent to an auto insurance company for the other party that hit me last year. They are attempting to settle with me and told me that it has taken so long because they were sent 70 pages of my medical records. I only signed a release for medical records pertaining to my auto accident treatments. I found out because the insurance adjuster told me things about my medical history that is totally unrelated to the accident. Is there a possibility to file suit against the Doctor's office that released all my records, most likely not on purpose, just didn't take the time to read the release and got stupid and sent them ALL. If I can file suit, how do I find an attorney who will take a case like this? So, far all I have located are lawyers for accidental death and malpractice.

Thanks for helping!

I would think it is only a hippa violation at most. Call them and see if you have a case.
What damage did you sustain as a result of them releasing more information than necessary?

I have a fax machine at home and in err I have received medical records of patients, test results in nursing homes etc... I call the facility that faxes them to my number and invite them to come and pick them up or if they prefer I will shred them. My call is just to let them know to be more careful as there is always a possiblty of human error.
I don't believe they need to be sued just to be more careful.

What are the damages? The damages are that the auto insurance company knows medical information about me that is private and should not be in their hands. As well as, they never contacted and said hey we have all the medical records here that you charged us for that we didn't have authorization to have. Privacy violations are big... how would you like it if others knew private information about you that you believed would be kept safe and unavailable to others unless you gave consent for them to do so?

As I said call Hippa they have a department that handles such matters.

Hello rissa:

I think you have cause to worry, and I think you have a case. I'm not familiar with how much you can be awarded by a hipa violation, but I would absolutely seek the max.

In addition to the well known credit bureaus like Experian and Trans Union, there is another, very quite bureau out there that contains your medical records (at least the ones that aren't private). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover that these unauthorized records found their way into that database. Not surprisingly, the name of this bureau is "Medical Information Bureau".

Like lenders check your credit beforehand, THIS is the place where insurers check your health before it sells insurance.

I hope you kick their butt HARD.

excon

So what are your damages? If this goes to suit ALL of your medical records will be requested anyway. Did your prior medical information somehow harm your attempt to settle the accident?

It is also possible that the insurance company would not have settled without the complete records if there is any thought/suspicion that a prior medical condition or treatment was a factor in the accident, such as diabetes, prescription drugs and so forth.

I'd complain and I understand you are upset but I don't see the damages here. I'd take the Release in to the Doctor and ask what was released and why - if there is a problem settling because of the medical records and perhaps they never would have been requested, well, then you've been harmed but I think that will be difficult to prove. Likewise if you get more because there was no contributing medical condition, then you've come out ahead.

This is often a problem when a person deals directly with an insurance company - every penny they don't give you they get to keep and so, no, they weren't going to volunteer that they got records they may or may not have been entitled to.

[QUOTE=excon]Hello rissa:

I think you have cause to worry, and I think you have a case. I'm not familiar with how much you can be awarded by a hipa violation, but I would absolutely seek the max.

In addition to the well known credit bureaus like Experian and Trans Union, there is another, very quite bureau out there that contains your medical records (at least the ones that aren't private). I wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover that these unauthorized records found their way into that database. Not surprisingly, the name of this bureau is "Medical Information Bureau".

Like lenders check your credit beforehand, THIS is the place where insurers check your health before it sells insurance.

I hope you kick their butt HARD.



And it's entirely possible the medical records in question were already on the site - have a prescription filled, bingo, you're on the site!

Great answer

As far as I see and relating to other HIPAA cases I have read about the only person you'd get in trouble here is the clerk or whoever at the Dr's office actually sent the fax.I would probably ask to see what they were actually asked to fax by the insurance company. Even though you say you only signed off on medical records relating to the accidentwho knows what the paperwork they were sent asked them to fax and what you actually signed...

I don't think you can file suit because, I don't see ay material damage to you. All you can do is report the indcident as a violation of HIPAA.

If you don't settle then you will have to sue. In that instance the other side will know everything possible medical wise about you from the time you were born, if necessary. Hopefully, your case won't go that far, but believe me, they can and will subpoena every single last piece of medical information from every hospital, doctor, psychiatrist, etc. about you that they can and send it to an expensive insurance defense attorney to spend many happy hours picking through the records to hopefully find some good reason not to pay you a dime.

Again, the magic word here is "subpoena". You don't have to sign anything as the other attorney will simply use that magic word to have all the records he wants to appear in his office courtesy of your lawsuit.

Sue who for what? Try reading the info at the HIPAA site. There are penalties for violating HIPAA, but a HIPAA violation is not a cause for a suit.

So you see this as a violation of HIPAA and the basis of lawsuit - ?

Or are you talking about the original insurance claim which I think is just that, an insurance claim.

I realize you have posted in some detail about your own accident so it is certainly not confidential - is your advice concerning the "expensive insurance defense attorney" spending "many happy hours picking through the records to hopefully find some good reason not to pay you a dime" a reflection of your own experience following your own accident?

Unfortunately if anyone has a past (or present) medical condition which affects an insurance settlement - with hospital, doctor, psychiatrist records - it factors into the dollar amount of the settlement. People cannot blame an accident for a pre-existing injury.

I work these cases and the other side of this is that if everyone got "paid" what THEY think their accident is "worth" none of us could afford insurance. Pre-existing conditions play a big factor in settlements.

So how do you see this?

I agree with Judy. At my last firm most of my work was concerned with settlements of class action lawsuits for medical malpractice and we often sought medical records outside the scope of the original injury. The insurance company is entitled to put on a complete defense and this will include medical records outside of your claim. I would be surprised if your Authorization did not include other medical information, as most Auths do. If it didn't, your only real course of action is a HIPPA complaint against the doctor. You could try to get the records the Insurance company got excluded, but they likely would have been allowed to get them anyway, so it is unlikely that you will win that one. Do you have something to hide in your records that may lead to them not settling?

Realize you are an Attorney and I am not but I am surprised by your statement that "most Authorizations" will include medical information outside the claim. Any firm I ever worked for - and any authorization I ever signed - was very, very specific about what could be released and also very limiting as to the info and the time frame. I work primarily for personal injury firms and they are sticklers about releases. I'm not saying the defense team is not entitled to the info - I'm just saying I have never seen it addressed without an Court argument. Different in California?

Interested in the class action medical malpractice lawsuits - can you give me an idea what type of claims you are talking about? Aware of drug company class action suits (and have worked on a couple) but not medical malpractice class action -

Interesting!

On the class action suits most of the claims have been product liability, failure to warn, and defective product. Med Malpractice has been thrown into the suit when Doctors were working on trial for the drug company or when the attorney did not understand how to separate claims. For a very large pharmaceutical class action that I worked on, we had blank auths in most states involved (there were some exceptions, Illinois and New jersey being the 2 that come to mind) that were usually good for a year from the date of signature. Actually, we had several attorneys in our firm argue that the auths were good indefinitely as they did not actually state an expiration date, but it tends to be that most hospitals have their own policy as to how long ago an auth was dated (shortest that I encountered was 30 days, longest was a year).

All of the Auths we had plaintiffs sign for the class actions (and these are most of what I have seen, minus a few insurance claim authorizations) were for any and all medical records. Heck, we even got dental records (although most were very very irrelevant and almost never used). Of course, most pharmaceutical class actions are a whole different ball of wax because of the need to establish when the drugs were taken, and who prescribed them. Such an open field of players, you kind of have to ask for everything hoping to get lucky especially if you have a plaintiff that fails to fill out the Plaintiff information form correctly or completely. We did have plaintiffs that wanted to sign or at least have their attorney's review each blank auth we filled out for requests of records. While these were a PITA, it is well within their rights to do so. Most, however, signed the blank auths. We had 4 different kinds based on what we were seeking (medical, psychlogical, work records, school records).

And the insurance companies should be sticklers. I guess I was trying to say that the insurance company of the OP could argue that they could and would have gone after the other records that they inadvertently received from the doctor's office if the issue ever came up in court, does that make sense? The HIPPA issue in the OP post should concern the doctor since that is who actually violated the statute.

When you say settle who do you contact? Also I have not found a lawyer that will touch my case and OCR(Office Civil Rights)found the doctors guilty. Can you help me?

It is not a good idea to piggy back your question on someone else's. Especially one, two years old. Normally I would move it to another thread, but I haven't a clue what your situation is about. Please start a new thread with a more detailed explanation so we can help,


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