Posts Tagged ‘HIPAA’

More medical privacy madness

More presumably unintended consequences (see Oct. 23, Nov. 9) of HIPAA, the new federal law menacing institutions with $10,000 fines for releasing too much information about patients:

* “When Arkansas announced three flu deaths among its 2.8 million residents on Dec. 5 … it wouldn’t say whether the victims were young [despite intense public interest in whether this year’s flu was killing otherwise healthy children]. After consultation with its lawyers, it added only that the deaths involved adults in any of a dozen or so high-risk groups. In Iowa, state doctors wouldn’t list the hometown of a 1-year-old who died of the flu and wouldn’t say how long the child was ill, when it died or whether it had had a flu shot. It also wouldn’t say whether the child was boy or a girl.” (“Ark. Limits Info Regarding Flu Deaths”, AP/ABCNews.com, Dec. 30).

* Volunteer groups bringing holiday toys, teddy bears, and brownies to Quad Cities hospital wards are sometimes being told to leave the items with hospital staffs rather than visit the wards, and Santa Claus can make an appearance only if a separate guardian’s consent is obtained for each hospitalized child, according to the Moline Dispatch (Kurt Allemeier and Tory Brecht, “Privacy concerns limit Santa?s hospital visits”, Dec. 25; also see Martha Irvine, “How gifts can overwhelm children’s hospitals”, AP/Boston Globe, Dec. 25).

* And after Joynal Abedin became a victim of a fatal hit-and-run in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Adelphi, Md., his family did not learn of his fate for two weeks until it received a $17,000 bill from Washington Hospital Center in the mail; the hospital’s fear of medical privacy breaches was one factor contributing to the delay. (Yolanda Woodlee, “Hospital Bill Is Family’s Only Clue”, Washington Post, Jan. 20)

Filed under: Arkansas, HIPAA, hospitals, Iowa, medical

Medical privacy madness, cont’d

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has more about how HIPAA, the federal medical-privacy act, is undercutting care (see Oct. 23). For example, doctors who believe their elderly patients should not be driving anymore are less likely to pass on the word to family members. ‘We’re [also] seeing more medication errors in older patients because of this,’ says John Riesch, a vascular surgeon for the past 41 years and a former president of the Medical Society of Wisconsin. … The patients, who were used to having family members or companions help them figure out their medications, are now fending for themselves and sometimes taking the wrong dosage, Riesch says.” A federal regulator, meanwhile, expresses impatience at some doctors’ overcaution on these matters: despite “persistent” and “destructive” myths to the contrary, “spouses can pick up prescriptions for one another, doctors can send e-mails to their patients, and hospitals can release a patient’s room number and condition if the patient approves,” and so forth. Silly doctors, to be so spooked by the prospect of $10,000 fines for overstepping hundreds of pages of guidelines. (Meg Kissinger, “Fears over privacy law compromising care”, Nov. 8).

Filed under: HIPAA, hospitals, medical, Wisconsin

Medical privacy madness

HIPAA, the stringent new federal medical-privacy law, took effect in April, and soon had what may be some rather drastic unintended consequences in the town of Craig, Colo.: “To protect the privacy of those needing medical help, 911 dispatchers stopped mentioning residents’ names in radio calls to emergency response teams. That made it more difficult for the teams to find addresses,” which critics charge may have contributed to the death of a local heart attack victim. Moreover, thousands of doctors “have stopped sending out appointment-reminder postcards, figuring the cards could be read by someone other than the patient. Some doctors have stopped leaving messages on patients’ telephone answering machines, fearing that other family members might listen to them. Wives have been told they no longer could verify dental appointments for their husbands” — even though a federal official says such postcards, phone messages and spousal verifications do not violate the law. (Laura Parker, “Medical-privacy law creates wide confusion”, USA Today, Oct. 16).

Medical errors often arise from miscommunication, and the law has also made medical providers more reluctant to share information with each other about patients. Medpundit Sydney Smith (Oct. 20) comments: “Part of the problem is that the penalties are so stiff (they include time in prison) that no one wants to risk any breach, no matter how nonsensical and impractical complying with it may seem. I’ve heard colleagues say that they’ve had requests for old medical records from other practices or hospitals rejected because their request form was deemed ‘non-HIPAA compliant,’ and I’ve heard nurses ask one another if they’re allowed to tell another nurse in another department — say dialysis — details about the patient they’re sending over for care. Most see the law as punitive — one that will be used by the disgruntled and unhappy as one more weapon in their attack arsenal (along with laws on disability, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, etc.). That makes people — especially those who manage large organizations — very nervous. And that’s another reason they abandon common sense so readily.”

Filed under: HIPAA, hospitals, medical