HIPAA/doctors checking on pt's

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

Quick hipaa question-

suppose you have a patient. this patient is from a rural area (in another state) sent to your major facility for specialist problems that can't be dealt with at local rural hospital. Being taken care of by specialist doctor.

pt's primary care doctor calls to check on pt. wants to know how his clinical course is going. this guy is his pcp, it is documented as such. is it a violation of hipaa to discuss the pt's care with this doc?

he is directly involved in the pt's care, but just not at this specialist hospital. he will be the one to take care of him when he goes back to home state, etc.

on one hand, i can see the answer for NO-he's not managing his care RIGHT NOW, its the specialist. this doc can't give order or anything, since he doesn't have priveledges at the specialist hospital.

on hte other, i can see the answer for YES-he is directly invovled in the pt's care, maybe more so than the specialist, since he has the long term in mind, and not just the here and now, like the specialist. (make sense?)

this came up in discussion today, curious what ya'll think.

[Antikigirl, ASN, RN]

NO! That is their PCP, and will be following the case once the person returns...not only that, they have the history we so need!

I have come up to road blocks in this area before...even when a specilist wishes to know about a patient and the PCP has the info in the same county or even same town!!! Oh bother!

If in doubt, ask your charge nurse or the MD! If you can tell the MD "the PCP for this patient wishes an update", I find most MD's will gladly call them right away! Takes some of the burden off them!

HIPAA isn't a road block to medical information between healthcare providers taking care of the patient, if it really was what is the point! We would all die out of town...LOL! No use rational thought, and get this...ask the patient if able to speak or ask their MPOA if it is okay to give the info to the PCP..the patient or MPOA has the final say :)!

OH and document that convo!!!!!!

[TazziRN, RN]

We in our ER often transfer pts to tertiary care facilities, and it is our policy to call and do follow-ups to see how they're doing, if our diagnoses were correct, etc.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

If the PCP referred the patient to your facility, then yes it is fine. Especially if it is "documented as such". The PCP is going to want to follow up with his patient. These are referred to as "mutual patients"

Ex: When we are the on call provider during saturday clinics and a patient calls about their insulin, which we end up chaning. I document it and fax it to their PCP.......its not a Hippa violation just because "NO-he's not managing his care RIGHT NOW"

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

on the other hand, just make sure it is the patient's primary care doctor you're talking to. i wish i had a dollar for every time the patient's dentist, phd neighbor or third cousin who happens to be a gynecologist wants updates on our cardiac surgery patient's progress. and they all say "i'm dr. so-and-so and i want to know how mr. such and such is doing." implication being, of course, that they're entitled to the information.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

For our transports we have to have a person's name and telephone number. We have had several family members that will call and claim to be the doctor or nurse. We also designate at time for them to call us or we can call them.