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Privacy violations?
Asked Feb 22, 2009, 10:17 AM
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16 Answers My son stepped on a nail in the neighbors yard, I cleaned it and looked at it a little better and cleaned it again with peroxide and bandaged it. This happened Sunday 15th 2009. No school on Monday so I continued cleaning it and Tuesday I sent him to school after cleaning it again and not seeing any redness or swelling. The principal sees him limping down the school hall so she sent him to the nurses office, so around 9:30 am the nurse calls me telling me his wound was infected and swelled and had redness, suggested he be seen by his primary physician. So I went to the school to pick him up thinking he was in pain and it was serious enough. Upon my arrival at the school the nurse repeated herself to me 6 times that he needed to see his primary physician but I didn't need to take him home until his appointment, which in return upset me because if it that serious and he is in pain he needed to stay off of his foot, so I lashed out at the nurse telling her he will be seeing his primary physician and I was taking him home if it's as serious as she was implying. So I was able to make him an appointment for Wednesday 18th, 2009 at 4pm.I called the school and asked if my son could go to school until his appointment, they told me he couldn't come back to school until he was seen. Later the nurse called me and I informed her of why my son wasn't there and she said that he could have went to school that the school officials don't communicate to one another. I watch twins that are only 13 months old, no car seats for them, no consent to take them anywhere except if they needed emergency attention, so I tried to find someone including parent's of twins to come and watch them till I was done at my sons doctors office with no luck. So I rescheduled his appointment for Thursday 19th at 4pm, I called the school and informed them of his appointment. The principal called me later in the day Wednesday and asked for the doctors number, me thinking the only information can be given over the phone is that a patient did in fact have an appointment. But that wasn't the case here, the school nurse asked the receptionist questions concerning my conversation with the receptionist and the receptionist responded with what I said to her, and asked if my son was an existing patient or a new patient, asked what he was being seen for and what time his appointment was, and yes the receptionist gave her all this information and then some unknown to me at this time. Shortly after giving the principal the number the nurse calls me back and says she has all the information she needed and that was the end of the phone call. I was confused so I called my doctors office and identified myself and I asked the receptionist what kind of information was given out and she told me, which in return I called the principal and made arrangements to have a meeting with her and the nurse to discuss the situation. My meeting was Friday 20th,2009, I was seated in a room and the nurse and principal followed shortly after. The nurse started off with handing me a history form that I filled out at the beginning of the year and pointed to a paragraph I signed that states " In case of illness or injury of my student, I understand the school will attempt to contact parents or guardians first. Then they will contact other persons I have listed- if none of these are available, the school is authorized to make whatever arrangements are deemed necessary to maintain my students health, including but not limited to, emergency medical treatment". The nurse and principal had spoke to me through out the day of Tuesday and Wednesday. They never called the other 2 contacts I had on the history form. But they are saying that paragraph is what gave them legal right to call both myself and my sons primary physician. The nurse also as she held a book up and stated my last resort was to hot line you. And I asked for what? And neither the principal nor the nurse gave an answer. Now I am getting a written statement from the receptionist of the conversation between her and the nurse. I have talked to the head nurse at the doctors office and she clearly stated that there was in fact a HIPAA violation had happened in this situation. I feel that the school was also in the wrong because there was no emergency reason for the information to be asked. I have the doctors note that states clearly there was no signs/symptoms of infection and that she gave him a tetnus shot and sent him home. And the school officials stated that they could have gotten a doctor to give them the same thing just that there was an infection. Now first of all the school did not go through the proper channels, they also knew of the HIPAA laws that was in place for any medical information given to anyone without just cause of emergency medical treatment over the phone without the proper identification in person or in writing. Then when I brought this to their attention they threatened their last resort which was Hot lining me. So to me I took their statements as a threat from retaliation. They clearly abused their authority to the fullest, so I need to find out what my legal rights/remedies I have and what steps I need to take to get a resolution to this matter without my son or myself in the line of retaliation from the school officials. |
16 Answers
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| Frankly, if my child was impaled by a nail lying on the ground, I would have immediately gone for a tetanus shot. | ||||
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| The bottom line, however, is that HIPPA was intended to protect patients, and to do so in four main ways: to ensure health insurance portability (hence the name, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), to address fraud and abuse in healthcare, to ensure privacy and security of individuals health and medical information, and to standardize the handling of that information and to enforce those standards. Medical consumers should know their basic rights under HIPAA. They include that ones medical information cannot, without permission, be shared with ones employer or be used for advertising or marketing. Also, private notes about ones mental health counseling sessions cannot be shared with out permission. On the other hand, HIPAA expressly allows that ones medical information can be used and shared for the following: To facilitate and coordinate treatment and care. To pay doctors and hospitals for your health care. To provide information to your family, relatives, or friends who are involved with either your health care, or your health care bills (unless you object). To make sure that doctors give good care. To make sure that nursing home are clean and safe. To protect the public health; and To make required reports to the police, such as reporting a wound from a weapon. While this may seem like a long list of people to whom, and circumstances under which, your private medical information may be disclosed, remember that it is the exception and not the rule. Nearly all other scenarios require your health care professionals to keep your medical information private, and if they don't, they may have violated the HIPAA law. | ||||
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| Protected Health Information – All forms of patient-related information, including Name, address, birth date and site, social security number, race, type of medical Condition, status of medical condition, blood type, and other data that could be Used to identify the patient, and which may be transmitted or maintained in any Form, including verbal statements. All PHI that could identify an individual is Confidential. When using or disclosing protected health Information or when requesting protected Health information from another covered Entity, a covered entity must make Reasonable efforts to limit protected health Information to the minimum necessary to Accomplish the intended purpose of the Use, disclosure, or request. Disclosure means the release, transfer, Provision of access to, or divulging in any Other manner of information outside the Entity holding the information.” | ||||
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| Okay without an emergency reason which I clearly stated in my first post given by my sons primary doctor that there was no emergency to give anyone the right to information about my son over the phone without knowing who this person was. And in fact the doctors office has already stated that there was in deed a HIPAA violation in there office in this situation. | ||||
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| Why didn't you spend this much energy taking him to an immediate care clinic, rather than waiting days for an appointment and keeping your child out of school. They were apparently concerned and your lack of involvement in getting your child the medical attention that he needed only compounded your problem. She probably contacted the doctor's office as an alternative to contacting DCFS and filing a complaint of neglect, as your child was recommended to seek medical attention, emergency or not, and you were failing to do so. | ||||
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| And with your statement------Frankly, if my child was impaled by a nail lying on the ground, I would have immediately gone for a tetanus shot.------My son has had all his shots first of all and you can only do so much when the doctors are full at the times you can make available, and I was told by the school nurse he had to be seen by his primary physician I could have taken him to a walk in clinic here and got the tetnus shot and the school nurse refused. | ||||
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| Okay the ins I have if it isn't an emergency they will not cover the cost at the local ER. And for not being involved, well let's see if it was in fact infected, swelled, or red my judgment then would have been to take him in to be seen in the ER. I cleaned the wound and inspected it and found nothing as so did our primary physician | ||||
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