B&Ming about Freaking HIPPA!!!!!

Nurses HIPAA

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Specializes in Home Health.

Is anyone else out there SICK of HIPPA???

I am doing case management for a worker's comp co. A large part of my job is gathering medical records and reports so that I can then in turn share these with consulting physician's, etc...

It is getting so hard to do my job! I certainly understand and respect people for doing their's, but when I have a signed auth form in my hand, and the pt is standing right there saying they are fine w me having this info, I should not still have to explain myself over and over. I mean if the pt is OK w me having a copy of an MRI report, why does the md's office have to get their panties in a bunch?? It is very embarrassing to have to justify my position when they question me in the middle of the doctor's office waiting room full of people.

I have three cases right now, where my hands are completely tied because I can't get the medical records I need. In a few cases, even the pt's can't get the records they need themselves!!

OK

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We just had our first meeting today about how it will affect us in research -- no one really knows, so more paper...my poor folks are already reading 8-10 page consent forms for even simple studies and now they have to sign more??? Plus it is a nightmare with the way data is handled...sigh...

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Yeah, I am sick of it too. There was an article either in RN or Nursing 2002 Sept issue about HIPPA. Supposedly even when you are at the doctor's office waiting to be called back, the nurse or whoever will not be allowed to call your name. What are they going to do? Assign us numbers and call us back like freakin' cattle? :( I would be willing to bet the suits responsible for this bill haven't ever worked in healthcare, or it was around the time Florence was checking the wards with her lamp. I work on a general med-surg floor, and they have already started implementing some of the regs. I am still trying to figure out how we are going to handle the phone calls we get? Plus, I also read in this article about not being able to fax any info with any ID stuff on it unless we can be 100% sure of where it is going. :confused: Oh, I am getting a headache just thinking about this. This along with other issues is seriously making me think about leaving nursing. What a flippin mess. :devil: :devil:

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

The last time I went to my doctor, they had a sign up that said something about "you will be called by number to protect privacy". How stupid. Every time someone signed in, the secretary would grab the signin sheet, read it really quick then put a long white sticker over the information the person had written down so that whoever signed in next wouldn't see the name of the person before them. I DO understand not wanting everyone to have access to the phone numbers and addresses of the other patients, but couldn't you just put that on a different list or something? Ah well--just another way for us to lose our identity to those who want to protect us from each other.

Carol

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What about all this stuff going on in congress where we are losing our patient rights??

I heard something to the effect that anybody will be able to request medical information and won't need a consent form from the patient?? I'm thinking this is just for the benefit of the insurance companies so they can......

1. deny insurance

2. raise our rates

3. control our lives even more

I thought it was illegal to practice medicine without a license?? Seem that the insurance companies are doing it on a daily basis....dictating how long the patient is to recieve care or therapies......regardless of what the MD may prescribe.......

am I the only one who thinks this way??????

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NannaNurse-No you are not the only one thinking this way. Just bugs me to no end that the insurance companies get to dictate what meds pts can take, what treatments pts receive, how long they can stay in the hospital, etc. I have heard more than one of the docs go off on a long tangent about insurance companies and it wasn't pretty. I suppose some of this stuff got started when certain doctors would admit pts for a hangnail, and leave them in for 2 weeks running every test on the books. Now we have doctors do that still, and when the insurance company refuses to pay anymore days and the doctor refuses to discharge, the hospital eats the bill. :devil: My insurance company is so messed up I don't know who is on the plan and who isn't because it keeps changing daily. :( I don't know how UR nurses do their jobs without commiting mass mayhem. I would want to crawl right through the phone line most of the time and choke someone with it. I got to stop now, getting too wound up about this......

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Specializes in Hospice.
:eek: I have just started my second job as our Employee Health Nurse, and all I have heard about is HIPPA........scares the hell out of me!!!
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When I started at the start of the summer, all the talk was HIPPA, I even remeber the silly tagline from a video we had to watch, "Remember, its not hippo, it's HIPPA." The thing that gets me, is again the problem I would have retriving my own medical records. One person I know and work with looked up her own MRI report that had been done at our hospital and recieved a warning regarding pt confidentiality and HIPPA. FOr wanting to read her own medical records!! Incredulous...

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Specializes in MS Home Health.

Royal pain in the duppa..............very hard for home health as the patient has left the hospital and if they don't sign a consent sometimes the hospital won't send the information so we have to go out to the home literally not knowing squat.........get a consent and go back to the office, faxn it to the doc or whomever, and days later we finally have a history by then you only have a day if your lucky to get your OASIS data entered in the computer which has to be input by day 5 after the admission date. What a nightmare......

renerian

renerian

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We implemented the HIPPA regulations at our hospital this time last year. It has been a real pain in the butt.

Everything has to be made into an obstacle these days.

I agree whoever dreamed this one up-- it was probably a nurse writing her doctoral dissertation - but whoever it was , was not doing patient care.

I can't get my own copy of my medical records....more obstacles.

It makes me realize how people who are emotionally unstable "go off" in emergency rooms, etc. They just become so ooo frustrated when they are poor, ill, and cannot get thru the system.

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

I'm my agency's HIPAA Privacy officer and have been workin on this stuff for 6 months.

HIPPA regs make it MANDATORY that you are entitled to a copy of your health records with a note or written release form--may need to pay a fee depending on Dr/facility.

Don't get sucked in by mass hysteria. Calling out names in Drs office ok.---identifying condition or Insurance on sign in sheet is NOT ok.

90% of current regs is just adjusting policy and procedures covering what many work settings already do and 10% change (more private areas to discuss information,shredding copies info etc).

Will add links tonight so Hoolahan can have copy to wave under recalcentrent noses.

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Thanks Karen! Do you have any information on research studies and HIPAA?

Can we put pt initials (not names) on the backs of books if the door to the book room is open when we are in our offices? Or should the door always be closed?

What is the role of pharmaceutical monitors in HIPAA? Are they considered business associates (our HIPAA person says no but I don't think she really understands what they do).

this is all new to me. It doesn't help that we have one person for our entire university and she is not familiar with everything that everyone does, as she is a lawyer and not a medical person.

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