With the official enactment of HIPPA regualtions, how has this affected your work in telephone triage, physician referral, & nurse advice?
It's been interesting, to say the least, to make the adjustment here. When we return calls to those who left a voice mail message, we can't give out any info other than, "this is jane doe returning a call to john doe. please call me at 555.5555"
I think it is a lot of common sense. A lot of people are just freaking out. But, as far as I'm concerned, we've always done things that way, but the patient never knew we did.
We have too. Our latest software update came with a screen where we could provide our patients with a privacy statement. It's taking a bit of getting used to seeing. Now, if one gets composed & entered, THAT will be interesting.
I do not mind leaving the generic answering machine message. It's the husband answering the phone who thinks I am a telemarketer wanting to speak with his wife. I can't give too much information and he acts like she is going to buy a thousand dollars worth of jewelry from me. She is the stupid one, and he is the smart one protecting her from me....drives me nuts.
On our locked mother/baby unit, we screen visitors using a camera system. If they can't give us first AND last name of the mom, they are not to be admitted. This causes some grief, you know, the people who swear Susie is my best friend, but I don't know her last name. Or those who are only familiar with the dad, don't know mom's first OR last name and of course the last name is not the same.
On the phone, it's about the same as before: I've never given out progress information to anybody over the phone, but now even if I know who they are talking about, I can't tell the caller if they are even there. Some people get pretty PO'd over that; I do add the privacy law prohibits giving that information and some understand that and some don't.
Hubby and I have signed information giving the OK for our docs/insurance company/etc. to give information to both us regarding either of us.
Specializes in LTC, Disease Management, smoking Cessati.
It hasn't changed things too much except for outbound calls. We have a protocol now to follow to make sure we are speaking to the correct person (identity verification), such as asking for demographics, birth date, etc. When leaving a message we can say who we are and the company we are calling from, like always even before Hipaa we never leave any private health information or the name of the program we are calling from such as the stop smoking program, disease management program etc.
Audreyfay
754 Posts
I think it is a lot of common sense. A lot of people are just freaking out. But, as far as I'm concerned, we've always done things that way, but the patient never knew we did.