Covfefe-19 The 12th Part: The Only Thing Worse Than This New Board Is TrumpVirus2020

[Swansong]

First, swansong will probably know best here.

But i'm going to wildly take a swing.

I don't think that's entirely true. Doctors can't just go randomly probing medical records. Most of the largest systems log who has seen your records and I'm guessing they audit those. Just because Prince is at your hospital doesn't mean you can open his records and see what happened. You need to have a reason. (I use that case specifically because they fired a bunch of people who viewed his records despite being RNs or maybe even an MD or two)

Yeah, there's no "exclusion" in HIPAA, but as a covered entity (to wit: a healthcare organization) they do in fact have a "need-to-know" reason to access your medical history. I'm not sure about specialties like ophtalmologists (do they really need to know your vaccination status? I don't honestly know) and access to unrelated PHI, but I can say that our hand surgeons and phsyical therapists can access your whole chart. We may re-order things so that they're presented with specialty-specific info, but they can definitely access more. It is possible that this eye doctor's practice had very strict interpretations of HIPAA and that they were just exercising that.


A doctor would be violating HIPAA if they just opened up some rando's chart, but that sort of violation happens literally millions of times per day across the country. It only becomes a problem if it... becomes a problem. Like when dozens of idiots were fired for looking up Jussie Smollett's chart after his "incident".
https://www.midlandhealth.org/Upload...uly%202019.pdf

Best practice is to stay the f out of charts where you don't belong.

[Kepler]

First, swansong will probably know best here.

But i'm going to wildly take a swing.

I don't think that's entirely true. Doctors can't just go randomly probing medical records. Most of the largest systems log who has seen your records and I'm guessing they audit those. Just because Prince is at your hospital doesn't mean you can open his records and see what happened. You need to have a reason. (I use that case specifically because they fired a bunch of people who viewed his records despite being RNs or maybe even an MD or two)

I was more thinking that they are allowed to ask the question, not that they can just rifle your records.

[Swansong]

I was more thinking that they are allowed to ask the question, not that they can just rifle your records.

A covered entity is a covered entity, homie.

[Kepler]

A covered entity is a covered entity, homie.

-- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994)

[SJHovey]

Asking a person about their medical information isn’t a violation of HIPAA.

HIPAA governs the disclosure of protected health information by covered entities that have possession of it (hospitals, insurance companies, employers, etc…). The law provides certain instances where the entities can disclose the information. However, it can always be disclosed if the subject authorizes it.

Thus, you getting asked whether you are vaccinated can’t violate it because first, there is no disclosure to a third party, and second, you answering the question is essentially your authorization, is it not?

[MichVandal]

Some interesting data from Australia- a possibility of death chart https://www.immunisationcoalition.or...s_included.pdf

Sorry for the Moderna people, the original's down under were AZ (not here in the US) or Pfizer. In my age range, an unvaccinated person is 27.5x more likely to die than me. So much for the idea that the vaccines don't do anything.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

This bar is close to mukilteo, the place in WA that has taken to kill a mockingbird off the curriculum

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-w..._6J53qgbmdED-o

[burd]

Asking a person about their medical information isn’t a violation of HIPAA.

HIPAA governs the disclosure of protected health information by covered entities that have possession of it (hospitals, insurance companies, employers, etc…). The law provides certain instances where the entities can disclose the information. However, it can always be disclosed if the subject authorizes it.

Thus, you getting asked whether you are vaccinated can’t violate it because first, there is no disclosure to a third party, and second, you answering the question is essentially your authorization, is it not?

Correct. And there can certainly be a difference between what HIPAA requires and what a provider’s own employment policies require of its employees, so long as the federal law’s requirements are met or exceeded. In other words an employee could violate internal employee regulations without violating HIPAA

[Scarlet]

It is commong to answer when doing the MyChart eCheck In, and then when you go to actually check in at the desk. When was the third incidence?


Also, they didn't ask if you're vaccinated because they likely know already (I worked on the interface with the state). They should have confirmed, but I don't work in practice management

The office called me to pre-register. I honestly don't recall if it was a question on the myChart questionnaire. Could've been there. I did ask my doctor during my appointment and she showed me my medical records that had all three shots listed, so that was good to see. I did get my first Shingles vaccine and go back for my second one in 2-6 months. More unknown stuff injected into my body!! When will it end???? Guys can get the Shingles vaccine, right? Have any of you gotten it?

[SJHovey]

The office called me to pre-register. I honestly don't recall if it was a question on the myChart questionnaire. Could've been there. I did ask my doctor during my appointment and she showed me my medical records that had all three shots listed, so that was good to see. I did get my first Shingles vaccine and go back for my second one in 2-6 months. More unknown stuff injected into my body!! When will it end???? Guys can get the Shingles vaccine, right? Have any of you gotten it?

I got it. I didn't really have any reaction to it other than some soreness in the shoulder after both shots.

Strangely enough, I never had chickenpox as a kid, even though my siblings did, along with numerous friends. My doctor told me one day that I had it, I was just one of the lucky people who didn't have the symptoms.

[rufus]

That reminds me, I need to get the shingles vaccine. I had it last year, and it was not fun. Like someone stabbing a knife into my forehead above my eye for two weeks.

Do not want to go through that again. Although getting shingles did allow me to discover gabapentin, which has been awesome in helping me sleep. Crazy dreams with that stuff.

[Swansong]

The office called me to pre-register. I honestly don't recall if it was a question on the myChart questionnaire. Could've been there. I did ask my doctor during my appointment and she showed me my medical records that had all three shots listed, so that was good to see. I did get my first Shingles vaccine and go back for my second one in 2-6 months. More unknown stuff injected into my body!! When will it end???? Guys can get the Shingles vaccine, right? Have any of you gotten it?

That office has had, effectively, a generational turnover these last 6 months to go along with the admin/support staff churning like crazy. We've been trying to work with them to leverage the MyChart pre-visit stuff more (we're running a test with another, smaller, clinic that's shown enormous time saving improvements by doing so), but unfortunately there's still enough of the old guard that simply doesn't trust technology.

On the bright side, the new provider staff they're bringing in are absolutely terrific. As much as the office is a headache for me, I would recommend them to anyone else in a heartbeat.

[Scarlet]

That reminds me, I need to get the shingles vaccine. I had it last year, and it was not fun. Like someone stabbing a knife into my forehead above my eye for two weeks.

Do not want to go through that again. Although getting shingles did allow me to discover gabapentin, which has been awesome in helping me sleep. Crazy dreams with that stuff.

I didn't think it was a yearly shot???

[Drew S.]

That reminds me, I need to get the shingles vaccine. I had it last year, and it was not fun. Like someone stabbing a knife into my forehead above my eye for two weeks.

Do not want to go through that again. Although getting shingles did allow me to discover gabapentin, which has been awesome in helping me sleep. Crazy dreams with that stuff.

Why didn’t you take Ivermectin? That’s on you for suffering unnecessarily.

[ScoobyDoo]

I didn't think it was a yearly shot???

I don't think it is either. A friend recently had it and is recommending the vaccine.