I was fired for a HIPAA violation and do not think it was warranted. I am a scheduler at a busy family practice. They are completely EHR and in order to schedule patients we are often in their charts. We had been told on numerous occasions to look in patients charts to schedule them correctly, for example a patient who has diabetes needs 30 minutes for some providers. We also had to check and see if it is time for their yearly physicals and labwork. In order to do this we have to be in their charts. On this particular day I answered a call from a very distraught patient who stated that on her check out sheet was a diagnosis of Stage II kidney failure (which she stated she never knew she had a problem with her kidneys). She asked that I find on what date that diagnosis was given. I went through each of her visits and checked her lab trying to assist her. I explained to the patient what I was doing and that I would have either the doctor or nurse contact her that day. I then checked later that day to make sure that her message had been taken care of. I did put a message out to the physician and stated exactly what the patient had said. After the call I did discuss this with my co-workers but not at any time did I state the patients name, only the situation. I am extremely upset about this as I do not feel I violated HIPAA regulations. I truly felt that I helped the patient and at the end of the call she had calmed down. Did I violate HIPAA?

If no personal information was disclosed within your discussion with co-workers, such as names, ID numbers, social insurance numbers, etc. then there was no HIPAA violation, but why did they think you did divulge this information and terminate you ?

I am not sure, they said I had no business being in that patients chart multiple times, granted I did not explain myself very well at the time and I was so flustered and the only thing I could think of was I am being fired.