HIPPA and retaliation

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I worked for about ten months for a very difficult doctor who insisted that I do anything humanly possible to make her life easier. She was not an easy person to work for and she was recently terminated due to a string of inappropriate behaviors. She decided that her nurse had her fired (yeah,right) and found an old text on her phone from me with PHI on it. This was a text sent per her request and after her termination she supposedly turned the screenshot in to HHS. Does anyone know anything about nurse/doctor texts andHIPAA? Doc participated in the conversation which isn't extremely clear in her screenshot.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

The problem is, even if the doc participated in it, she no longer works there, and you do. So the question is, did YOU provide protected health information over text? Was this your personal cell phone?

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assuming you were both treating the patient as members of the healthcare team and the information was not disclosed to anyone not on the healthcare team you are fine.

Look up the number of hippa cases HHS takes action on yearly- the number is so small it will shock you.

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She sounds like quite the piece of work. She had a need to know, you sent the information.

Why would a text be any different than a verbal phone communication? Both are vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Try to relax and be glad the wicked witch is gone. Might be worth a free consultation with an attorney ( and your malpractice carrier).... so you can sleep at night.

P.S. It's HIPAA

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
I worked for about ten months for a very difficult doctor who insisted that I do anything humanly possible to make her life easier. She was not an easy person to work for and she was recently terminated due to a string of inappropriate behaviors. She decided that her nurse had her fired (yeah,right) and found an old text on her phone from me with PHI on it. This was a text sent per her request and after her termination she supposedly turned the screenshot in to HHS. Does anyone know anything about nurse/doctor texts andHIPAA? Doc participated in the conversation which isn't extremely clear in her screenshot.

Does your employer have Policy or Procedure relative to text messages and PHI?

If I were your manager I would note the historical nature of her "complaint" and wonder why she didn't report this earlier if she was concerned.

Of course, everyone knows why she didn't report it earlier; because she was complicit and likely encouraged that exchange of information. Now she is simply bitter and looking to hurt someone.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
She sounds like quite the piece of work. She had a need to know, you sent the information.

Why would a text be any different than a verbal phone communication? Both are vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Try to relax and be glad the wicked witch is gone. Might be worth a free consultation with an attorney ( and your malpractice carrier).... so you can sleep at night.

P.S. It's HIPAA

I think the physician is probably in more trouble than the OP -- we're allowed to text physicians on our personal cellphones as long as they're set to lock at the shortest interval possible and the text is deleted from our phones "in a timely fashion." If she's already been fired, she's no longer caring for that patient and has no reason to have the text still on her phone!

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Specializes in Internal Med, Primary Care, Ambulatory.

Why not use a form of secure messaging? Providers always want info sent to them in a way that is convenient to them, but why not instruct them to log in securely? If I must send an urgent text or page to a provider, it is to advise the provider to log in remotely for information they may want to be made aware of in their "off" hours.

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