Hippa question

You have NO way of verifying that the person on the other end of that phone is who they say they are and that's why your hospital has devised the PIN approach. Our hospital does something similar - we give the patient's significant other (in our case the parents) a card with the unit's phone number and location in the building on one side and a barcoded patient label on the other side. Each patient will have two numerical identifiers, their Universal Life Identifier (ULI) that will remain the same no matter which hospital they're admitted to, and their medical record number for our hospital. The MRN is the number we highlight on the card so they know which number we're asking them for. We also make it very clear that we will not give any kind of information over the phone without that number, and that the only person we have given the number to is them. If they choose to share it with other people, that's up to them.

Quite a few years ago we had a fairly high-profile patient on our unit, a child who had been seriously injured in a motor vehicle vs bicycle collision. I was going to the clean supply room and found a woman part way down the hall inside our controlled-access unit and asked if I could help her. She told me that she was there to see "Mary Jones" and which bed was she in. I asked if she was a family member and she said no. I aksed if she was a friend of the mother and she said no. Okay, so who the heck are you lady?? Turns out she was a reporter... and I escorted her out of the unit post-haste. You can't be too careful with other people's private information.

Providing unauthorized persons with a patient's information is a HIPPA violation regardless of how innocent the questions is. If the person calling was authorized to inquire info regarding the pt, that authorized person would have known the pin. It may seem a silly rule/protocol, but it works.
Hope this helps.

http://www.hipaa.org/
http://www.hippa.com/