[Troubador222]

My wife works for a local hospital and runs the lab in that hospital. My insurance is through her job. Every time my doctor requests blood work be done, my wife tells me that for our insurance to cover it, I have to do it through her lab. So she runs my blood work and knows it before I do. I have nothing to hide from my wife, but the whole concept of me being denied this basic privacy concerns me. Because of this situation, should not the insurance provide me with a cost effective plan to do the same thing to provide me with my privacy under HIPPA? Or should I have to pay more?

[heather128]

First of all call the insurance company yourself and check and make sure that what she is telling you is right. If so I would talk to the hospitals privacy officer, Explain your concern that you feel that you have no privacy since your wife is the one that runs the tests and see if there is another way to have it labeled, i.e. with your patient id #. Just explain that your wife is doing nothing wrong you just feel that if something serious were to come up in your bloodwork you wife would already know before you could tell her, even if she didn't say anything to you. Some hospitals also have policies where if it a family member or someone you know you are to ask someone else to do it for you, if they don't have this policy in place maybe they need to. I have worked in Health Insurance and on the Hospital side of things. Hope this helps!

[LearningAsIGo]

The advice above is spot on. I'd just like to add that the insurance company is within rights to establish those rules.

However, it's possible that your wife should not be running your tests due to HIPAA. She may want to opt out and request a colleague run your tests for her own protection should a situation arise. I'm not completely versed in this exact scenario but you might want to look into it.