I am a nurse and I work in the home health care setting. A new patient that I visited with asked me for my phone number as I was leaving. He had a list of phone numbers for other nurses and I added mine to it. I am now being accused of a serious HIPPA violation. Is this in fact wrong? Is it a HIPPA rule that I cannot give out my own phone number?

If you have a cell phone number, that works the best for you and for the client. That is what my nurses and home health care aids did. As far as HIPPA, I don't see why you would be "prosecuted" for such a minor thing.

Who is accusing you and what exactly is the violation? The HIPAA violation stories seem to get stranger by the day. How is giving your contact information divulge his medical records?

Contact information has nothing to do with HIPAA unless there is more to this story than you are sharing.

Is it possible your organization has a COMPANY policy forbidding you from sharing your telephone number? If so, this would violate their policy, but not HIPAA itself.

Thanks to everyone for helping with this question. I found out that another nurse had told the agency that I had called this patient and talked to him about his medical condition and his scheduling which I did not. In the meeting with my boss the form was changed from HIPPA violation to policy violation. Which is still wrong, but I signed and will go on. I am currently looking for another company because of this, due to the hearsay causing a write up, anything could come of such.