I need some opinions. The other night I was helping out in PACU. (I am usually in ER or Preop, but occasionally go to PACU when needed) I was asked by another nurse to transport her patient upstairs. The patient was early 30's female, very nice, always saying thanks when people helped her. We talked as I took her to her room. She had surgery for a cancer recurrence, so we talked about the surgery, her young kids, her family, etc. It was shift change, so I ended up having to wait with her for quite a while to see her nurse, the PACU nurse has to have face to face time with the receiving floor nurse. During this time we chatted some more. Then I left when her nurse got there.
The next day I was off. I was thinking about this patient and how nice she was. I called her room to check on her. I just let her know I had been thinking about her, and asked how she was doing...get well soon, etc. She seemed very appreciative.
A few days later I told her PACU nurse that I had spoken with her. This nurse was very offended with me and said I had broken HIPPAA (sp?) laws by calling the patient to check on her. Is this true? I just thought I was being nice. When I had my daughter, the L&D nurse called the next day to check on me. I know hospitals can be lonely places and thought one might like to hear a friendly voice and know someone was thinking of them.
I need some opinions. The other night I was helping out in PACU. (I am usually in ER or Preop, but occasionally go to PACU when needed) I was asked by another nurse to transport her patient upstairs. The patient was early 30's female, very nice, always saying thanks when people helped her. We talked as I took her to her room. She had surgery for a cancer recurrence, so we talked about the surgery, her young kids, her family, etc. It was shift change, so I ended up having to wait with her for quite a while to see her nurse, the PACU nurse has to have face to face time with the receiving floor nurse. During this time we chatted some more. Then I left when her nurse got there.
The next day I was off. I was thinking about this patient and how nice she was. I called her room to check on her. I just let her know I had been thinking about her, and asked how she was doing...get well soon, etc. She seemed very appreciative.
A few days later I told her PACU nurse that I had spoken with her. This nurse was very offended with me and said I had broken HIPPAA (sp?) laws by calling the patient to check on her. Is this true? I just thought I was being nice. When I had my daughter, the L&D nurse called the next day to check on me. I know hospitals can be lonely places and thought one might like to hear a friendly voice and know someone was thinking of them.
Did I do something wrong?????????
I don't think you violated hippa! It's hard not to be over caring about patients especially someone so young with cancer that you can probably relate to. Nurses have a commitment to patients privacy, she was in the right mind-set, seems she was grateful she had someone to talk to, and you were being nice. I definitely don't think you crossed a line and I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. If it does bother you look up hippa laws for nurses or talk to someone who is very very familiar with the hippa law.
I find it interesting how many people think that if it is not explicitly stated in a written policy then it can't be inappropriate. There are hundreds of things I can think of that aren't written in our policies that would still be inappropriate - really policy shouldn't have to (nor could it realistically) cover every single possible inappropriate thing someone might do.
And rachelita - glad to see you responded and were able to take something from the different perspectives.
I agree with this. This has nothing to do with HIPAA. HIPAA's been whipped, beaten, and misused until it borders on meaningless.
HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Title I protects consumers from losing their health insurance when they lose or change their jobs (our not-really-a-friend COBRA reform came from this) and also limits the amount of preexisting condition restrictions group policies can place on policyholders. It also limits the number of days group policies can count as "continuous coverage" in an attempt to reinforce that companies' preexisting condition requirement. For example, if you work for Company X, use their group plan, and are diabetic, and you take two weeks off and go over to Company Y, Company Y's insurance company CANNOT, under Federal Law, force you to wait sixty days for coverage for your diabetes because you have less than 63 days of a break from continuous coverage. I busted an insurance company for trying this with me, and they were truly p.o.'d for being called out on a violation of Federal law. (There are exclusions, but they're few and far between).
Title I is the "Portability" in HIPAA.
Title II is the "Accountability" of HIPAA. Title II defines offenses regarding health care and sets up penalties. There are five rules: the Privacy Rule of 2003 (PHI falls under here, along with payment history and a person's medical record), the Transactions and Code Sets Rule, the Security Rule, the Unique Identifiers Rule, and the Enforcement Rule.
Interestingly enough, HIPAA does not restrict medical professionals from disclosing PHI to family members over the phone (bet most folks don't know that - and any hospital who's terminated a nurse because of that and has cited HIPAA as the sole reason is one hundred percent wrong - feel free to go to the Department of Health and Human Services website and look it up). It does not restrict nurses from visiting patients on other units. It actually has very little to do with the relationship of RN to patient or of MD to patient (except when it comes to administrative stuff like billing and encoding and National Provider Identifiers). It has everything to do with what insurance companies try to do with people's PHI and EPHI (electronic PHI) and regulates how that information is shared and obtained.
A patient is certainly able to claim their PRIVACY has been violated, but in reality it all has nothing to do with HIPAA. Hospitals have overinterpreted (and in many cases incorrectly interpreted) the law until its actual intent is completely obscured.
WOW! I was hoping someone would point out what HIPAA really IS! It was never intended to be the be-all and end-all of a patient's privacy. It was enacted to help people change jobs without losing their healthcare benefits when changing insurance companies.
I believe, after doing rather extensive research on this issue several years ago, that someone picked up on an opportunity to make money training entities (hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, etc.) in how to protect patient information and be safe from the enormous penalties that await whoever violates it.
wow! i was hoping someone would point out what hipaa really is! it was never intended to be the be-all and end-all of a patient's privacy. it was enacted to help people change jobs without losing their healthcare benefits when changing insurance companies.
i wish that the motivation for this hypocracy, was the patients' interests and protection! actually it was the health care insurance companies' executives that wanted information about patients, in order to pay as little as possible for their care, and avoid providing coverage for people with costly conditions. so they hired lobbyists who persuaded the lawmakers to establish their ability to permeate medical records, in that effort.
a side benefit of that, was once they accessed the information heretofor unavailable to anyone except care providers of particular patients, they used the information they found it to deny affordable health insurance for those who evidenced that they were too great a liability for coverage - patients with a history of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, kidney problems, congenital aberrations, endocrinological problems, being of advanced age, etc.
i believe, after doing rather extensive research on this issue several years ago, that someone picked up on an opportunity to make money training entities (hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, etc.) in how to protect patient information and be safe from the enormous penalties that await whoever violates it.
thank you!! huge kudos to you!
yes, hippa has become another ax held over the heads of health care providers, when in reality it was transformed from hipaa, which did protect the right of patients to privacy, to something quite different. portability, when it was added to the bill was changed to provide coverage with cobra, wherein the premium of someone previously employed, was set according to the previous history of those employees, rather than accessibility to care.
i haven't heard that huge penalties exist for health care providers who allow information about their patients to be given to unauthorized persons. tiddldwink, please let me know if you've known of actual monetary fines for doing that. what i have heard about, is that hippa has been used as an excuse for terminations. i have felt that my professionalism was in question by having such a thing, since we are required to keep patient information confidential by virtue of our very nursing ethics.
since many different, younger and less educated people have become involved in various capacities in patient care, perhaps it is necessary for a law like hippa, but it is really a tool for insurance companies, which has been called into play as a means to accomplish discipline or discharge of an employee, without adequate evidence of that or anything else. you won't find a law like it in any other country where there is respect for health care workers.
And I'll add this - while an RN technically can't be fired or even cited for giving out PHI over the phone, I'm glad the average citizen thinks we can. ANYONE could identify themselves as a "family member" and find out all sorts of crap on someone that they just don't need to know. So even though I know crying "HIPAA VIOLATION!!" on this is crap, I do it anyway - just because I think it's good practice.
When a family member calls the unit that I RECOGNIZE (and our patients are on our unit a long time) AND I know the patient would be OK with me talking to that member (like say someone's husband or wife calls for an update after they haven't been able to be there for a day or so), I do talk to them - and caveat it with "I know you so I'm comfortable with talking to you".
Oh, and before I left my last facility, one of our patients was transferred to another unit. She knew I was going into the Air Force and knew I was being commissioned on the unit. She wanted to see me in my uniform - so I went to see her. She cried when I walked in the door in full dress blues and said she was so happy I came by. HIPAA vio? I think not!
HIPAA was what I said. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
And I agree. I just cringe when I see HIPPA... like a zoo animal.
Hipaa, schmippa. I wish that untoward visceral reaction some posts express, would be caused by the motivation and present vacuous use of this piece of legislation. It is a prime example of the way our country has been run, on big companies' maintenance of their huge revenues, not to mention the way some people have been victimised by others, who accuse one another of violations without proving that.
The confusion regarding its title is because the initials were changed several times when insurance companies became involved in its formation, during its presentation to Congress. We saw that too, when the Reform of Health Care Act's name, which became the Reform of Health Care and Insurance Act, bills' names get changed when additions are made as they slide and bump through the approval process, with interests of big business entering into the process, with their lobbyists.
.thumb.gif.09f7460d3e1ff8d6732564d77b5465cb.gif){kind=avatar}
MandE4and1
16 Posts
I don't think you violated hippa! It's hard not to be over caring about patients especially someone so young with cancer that you can probably relate to. Nurses have a commitment to patients privacy, she was in the right mind-set, seems she was grateful she had someone to talk to, and you were being nice. I definitely don't think you crossed a line and I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. If it does bother you look up hippa laws for nurses or talk to someone who is very very familiar with the hippa law.