I had to leave the state last week for a funeral. One of my co-workers looked online to
Find the obituary to see if he actually died and when. She took this to my superviser to
Discuss. Since we work in a medical office and she did this at work and on the employers
Computer, does it violate hipaa?
Thank you,
Stephanie Short

It does not violate HIPAA because this was an obituary in the local paper and is a public notice/record.

Also they were not looking at your records, ( hospital)
What they were looking at is public internet records.

You can research anyone you want from public records

This does not violate any laws. The obituary was on-line and most likely in a newspaper which is available for everyone to read.