2 home health agencies, 1 client

[Nursenikki1989]

I will give you a little background on this unique situation... I work for two seperate home health agencies. I started with agency 1 about 4/5 years ago. Lets call this client Mr. Smith. Well I had worked part time at Mr. Smith's with agency 1 about 2 years ago. Mr. Smith then switched to agency 2 for his nursing needs, but stayed with agency 1 for his home health needs. I got a new client with agency 1 and worked with him full time until he passed away in October.

Agency 1 had no open cases available....so in November I started working with agency 2. Much to my surprise, the first case they train me on is with Mr. Smith. Well I knew the home health aide that worked here from the pervious agency. This HHA said she mentioned me to agency 1.

Last week agency 1 called me with hours they had opening up. I told them the days I was working with Mr. Smith so they knew which days I was available to help them. I accidentally let the clients name slip when I was mentioning it to her....because we had spoken so much about the client in the past when they had nursing through agency 1.

I can not be 100% sure the HHA mentioned that I was working with Mr. Smith again to agency 1....but the lady I spoke with didnt seem surprised when I let his name slip. My question is, is this a violation of HIPPA? I am not sure because both agencies provide care to Mr. Smith. I'm beating myself up for letting his name slip on the telephone

(Sorry if this has been discussed somewhere else or isnt in the right thread, I couldn't find the info anywhere else.)