Is it a voilation of HIPPA if I leave a voice mail message for a patient if I am from a diagnostic lab?
Ex. Hello this message is for John Doe. Can you please call Joe from Quest @...


Thank you

As long as you do not identify an illnes, condition or patient info, then no. Why would a lab contact a patient directly? That could be a different type of violation.

I lived with my cousin for a while. A doctors office called and left a message for me simply reminding me of a doctors appointment. My cousin decided to invade my privacy and look up my doctors name AND SPECIALTY which is infectious diseases. She freaked out and thought I was going to infect her with something; she kicked me out. See how that happens? Let's say my controlling abusive husband pokes through my call history on my cell phone and sees a number without a name under missed calls. He takes the number and does a Google search and finds the number is from a law office that specializes in divorces. A receptionist takes a message for an employee. The receptionist recognizes the doctors name and knows the doctor is a cancer specialist. During lunch the receptionist gossips with her co-worker. The co-worker works in the benefits department. The employee is terminated a day before her benefits are scheduled to begin. See how all this happens? I worked for a company that preauthorized diagnostic testing and I don't know how many husbands freaked out by a male voice calling for his wife and not telling the husband who I worked for or why I was calling. I could only leave my name and call back number and state I had a message from their doctors office. They were pissed!

If someone want's to know something about you they can find it pretty fast. And because these situations arise frequently most doctors offices and other health care providers will have a patient sign a document asking the patient how they want to be contacted and even if the doctors office can leave a message.

This is from my own HIPPA guidelines in my employee manual (I'm in Mental Health):
"Yes. The HIPAA Privacy Rule permits health care providers to communicate with patients regarding their health care. This includes communicating with patients at their homes, whether through the mail or by phone or in some other manner. In addition, the Rule does not prohibit covered entities from leaving messages for patients on their answering machines. However, to reasonably safeguard the individual's privacy, covered entities should take care to limit the amount of information disclosed on the answering machine. For example, a covered entity might want to consider leaving only its name and number and other information necessary to confirm an appointment, or ask the individual to call back."

"For example, a covered entity might want to consider leaving only its name and number and other information necessary to confirm an appointment, or ask the individual to call back" The last paragraph of your manual confirms that this situation was not a HIPPA violation.

Patient invoicing

Its actually HIPAA and still no violation