New HIPAA forum

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

We are pleased to announce the creation of our new HIPAA forum:

HIPAA and Nursing Challenges

HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, affects all Nurses as well as Nursing Students in how we obtain and handle patient information. As patient confidentiality is a sacred trust, it is the duty of the Nurse to protect the integrity of the nurse-patient relationship. Come here to learn strategies on how to communicate with family members who demand information, how to check yourself as well as fellow colleagues and ensure accountability, discuss what is and is not acceptable information to release, and/or how to avoid disclosure pitfalls.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

It is especially important for us here on allnurses.com to avoid identifying patient information.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

What a great idea! If there's anything more often debated around here than LPN-vs-RN or nurses eating their young, it's HIPAA. Nice to have a separate forum for these discussions. :)

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I will not rest until we have a HIPPO forum. They're beautiful creatures, often not just hungry, but hungry hungry, and they deserve a forum where we can discuss their majesty.

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It is especially important for us here on allnurses.com to avoid identifying patient information.

I agree. My problem is not around giving info. its around getting it!

I work in a private Neuro facility. Sometimes our patients have to go to Hospital. We don't like it but we have to deal with it. The problem then is we can't get any information from the Hospital.

I called recently about a patient who had been in Hospital for 4 weeks. I was, initially, told 'yes he's fine'! When I then asked why then has he been in Hospital for all this time, I was met with 'we can't tell you, you could be anyone'. I had already told them who I was, where I worked & that I am the primary carer for this patient.

I then suggested that they look in his file, where they would find the number of our facility, and ring back as they could then check who I was. Guess what? They never called!

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Specializes in Rehab, LTC, Peds, Hospice.

That's not unusual to be told that. Plus - I'm not sure that you are entitled to have updates anymore as your patient isn't under your care at the time. It is my understanding that information between facilities is allowed when it is necessary to care for a patient. When they discharge him back to you - of course.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Hey guys!! Good to see the conversation about HIPAA. How about start a new thread in this forum to continue your discussion about issues you've experienced with HIPAA and we'll keep this thread for annoucement only.......

Hope everyone enjoys this forum and everyones finds it helpful. :)

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

Plus, if the forum title actually has "HIPAA" in it, people should get the acronym correct. :p

All joking aside, this a quite important forum for an oft debated subject on AN.

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