I am at dinner with my husband tonight and he tells me that he got a call today on his cell he uses for work from someone who claimed to work at the office of a doctor he saw one time over a year ago saying that said MD told him my husband had come to the office for back pain and asking if he had time to talk about his pain killer usage... (background... DH has 2 herniated disks and nerve damage for about 5 years now and a lot of pain and is under treatment from a different doc and gets injections into the bones every other month. This particular MD is a family practice doc and when we moved here last year, hubby chose her for primary and he saw her ONCE for a physical when he was told she couldn't manage him and he would have to see someone else... He changed his primary asap and the new MD sent him to ortho and pain management which is specialists who were treating him in NY). So back to today, my husband told the man on the phone he could not talk because he was at work and was given a phone # to call back when he could. He called the man back a few hours later and it went to voicemail saying this is "John at such and such clinical research facility" leave a message. DH didn't and told me later about call.
Well my DH works in advertising sales locally and it just so happens that "such and such research facility" is one of his clients. So not only did this doc give out his name, cell, and medical history to this research company, they gave it to one of his clients at work... The phone # that he called btw is in no way associated with the docs office and instead links to research company. I googled this company and they have multiple studies on back pain happening right now so I am assuming they were soliciting participants.
Am I completely wrong about this being a HUGE hipaa violation cause I feel like this is pretty bad news... And what the H-E double hockey sticks do we do now? These people are his clients and don't need to know his medical history! It's a fairly small company, 5 PIs, clinical staff of 20... How many other people I wonder are getting the same calls and don't know that their info has been exposed??? Lucky for us my DH told me and I told him not to accept any more calls from this man saying he works for the doc but this is completely wrong and a hipaa violation, is it not?
I am very sorry for obviously offending you so severely that you felt the need to reply to not one, but two posts in a row regarding my error in misspelling hipaa. In fact, my embarrassment in my error is so great that I attempted to delete my post in it's entirety which is not an option, and to delete my account here completely, which is also not an option, so I must sit here with my head hanging low in sorrow over being a disgrace to the profession. I see that you have almost 2000 posts here on allnurses.com, and are presently a nurse educator, so I realize that you must be somewhat of a nurse expert, not only in your particular field, but in the vast world of internet nursing. I hope that my error that was made in frantic cell phone typing has not caused you any personal frustration or grief and that I have not made your many, many, many hours spent here or membership fees for allnurses any less valuable to you, as this is clearly a very large part of your life. I can only look into my past, and wish upon a star that I could go back in time and have the joy of experiencing you as a teacher to me so I could have become a much better nurse than the failure and embarrassment to the profession that I clearly am today. I also hope that in all of your internet ventures and in real life, you stay true to yourself and stand proud in the fact that you are a great representation of nurses around the world and will never, ever, make an error in frustration. I wish I could meet you in person so I could see what I may become if I could really put my all into my internet persona. Everyone needs a goal and I thank you with all my heart for taking just a minute out of your busy life to be such an inspiration so I can become a better person and nurse than I am today.
However, this would be info to contact the US Dept of Health and Human Services (someone also gave the phone number to it). You do not "contact HIPAA." HIPAA is an act, a written statement, a policy, a rule, whatever you want to call it. You call agencies that ENFORCE HIPAA.....to me, that is a big distinction. HIPAA is not an entity.
However, this would be info to contact the US Dept of Health and Human Services (someone also gave the phone number to it). You do not "contact HIPAA." HIPAA is an act, a written statement, a policy, a rule, whatever you want to call it. You call agencies that ENFORCE HIPAA.....to me, that is a big distinction. HIPAA is not an entity.
Actually, if you think about it, it IS an entity...It has an essential nature and has most def taken on a life of its' own...LOL
Before this thread is locked, I'd like to chime in:
This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I've ever seen here. And pretty confusing as well. I still can't figure out why the OP is apologizing (there seem to be some deleted posts?). Hipaa is very often corrected as hippa on auto corrects on phones and computers (if that's all this about).
you do not "contact hipaa." hipaa is an act, a written statement, a policy, a rule, whatever you want to call it. you call agencies that enforce hipaa.....to me, that is a big distinction. hipaa is not an entity."
the office of civil rights is the one in charge of hipaa violations. that is the right one to contact.
FLAtoNYC...you are awesome!...and as I am in Fl and hate it and NYC is my favorite place in the world (and where I was born)...that makes you super awesome!! Wish I was FLAtoNYC2:heartbeat
I CAN appreciate and I apologize for my error. You guys are really tough... I was really fired up and typing from my iphone really fast in the car. Thanks at least for reading my story and for the couple of responses that helped. I am sorry to have offended you ALL by my frenzied typing. I love allnurses and reading your stories and wanted to share mine cause I was so frustrated and annoyed. And I am sorry to have made some people upset. I happen to be a pretty great RN IMHO, and unfortunately I am also human and make mistakes. I hope that you can look past my error and help me figure out what to do.
It was clearly an error, in the tittle you said HiPPA and if you look at the last paragraph you said Hipaa. We all make mistakes,especially me. My iPod gives me word options and it drives me crazy. 90 percent of the posts are about misspelling hipaa haha
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Seriously, folks........what is going ON out there?
Once again, a thread is in danger of being closed due to posts that not only violate the Terms of Service but serve to demean the nursing profession in general, and fellow nurses in particular. As you all agreed when you signed on as members here, there is no place here for inflammatory, rude, attacking posts; accordingly, as long as these types of posts continue, there will be more vigilance on the part of the administrators and moderators to keep Allnurses as flame-free as possible.
Some of you won't like that. We work hard to treat everyone as we ourselves wish to be treated---as responsible, professional adults---and we'd rather let some things go that we probably shouldn't, than to over-moderate (and be accused of being hateful, awful people in the bargain). However, the harsh tones of so many posts in the general-nursing and student discussions have only grown more harsh (to say nothing of more frequent!), and it's time to put a lid on the 'tude.
As President Ford once said, it is entirely possibly to disagree without being disagreeable. Let's try it, shall we?
you do not "contact hipaa." hipaa is an act, a written statement, a policy, a rule, whatever you want to call it. you call agencies that enforce hipaa.....to me, that is a big distinction. hipaa is not an entity."
the office of civil rights is the one in charge of hipaa violations. that is the right one to contact.
you are missing my point entirely.
i didn't say they weren't the right ones to contact.
one more time....and i don't know why i'm doing it, i'll probably get in trouble:
you contact the office of civil rights to report a hipaa violation. you do not contact hipaa itself.
I shall assign it its own phone number.
greenfiremajick
685 Posts
Really? Reporting for spelling/grammar? Now, THAT is serious word policing!