Posted: 1/3/2008 12:25:42 AM EDT
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The mention of HIPPAA in the suicide thread got me thinking. The ER here has in the past called us to report people leaving that are grossly intoxicated and driving. They tell the people not to leave, offer to call them a cab (and pay for it at the ER's expense) and so forth. If the people still leave they will often call us and tell us. Giving vehicle description and so forth (no names). Well, somehow the hospital administration caught wind of it and threw and absolute SHIT fit saying that violated HIPPAA and so forth. What say ARFCOM? To me they are doing the right thing, they don't want to see these guys back after crashing and injuring and/or killing someone else... I can neither confirm nor deny that there are still *anonymous* complaints of intoxicated subjects driving in the same area as the hospital... 
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It will stop when one of the intoxicated drivers/victims sues the hospital for millions because they could have prevented an accident from happening and chose not to. About that time the hospital general counsel will issue a memo saying that HIPPA does NOT prevent hospital employees from reporting violations of criminal law. Had my issues with HIPPA when I was a LEO. We routinely got medical records on the victims in cases to use in the prosecution of the suspect. We always had the victim fill out a hospital form allowing us to have access to the info. One time the hospital flat refuses to release the info because...it might be a HIPPA violation. They refused to play nice so we came back with a search warrant and a subpeopna for the hospital administrator to appear in person before a superior court judge the next day to explain this particular episode of idiocy. That ended our HIPPA problems. |
Essentially thats what I was saying to... |
This goes to the heart of the matter. Many in health care administration believe they can't do ANYTHING unless HIPPA specifically tells them they can do it. The question they should be asking is what does HIPPA specifically prohibit? The latter requires knowledge of the law which many administrators lack, so many hide behind the blanket "HIPPA doesn't allow it" rationale. FYI, I left LE work and went into health care. I see examples of HIPPA stupidity every day. |
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HIPPA does not apply when there is a crime involved. It says that specifically. However, HIPPA is a monster that has all the medical field scared to death. Everything is feared to be a HIPPA violation. For example, if someone gets raped, hospitals are MANDATORY reporters to LE about the crime. Child abuse is a MANDATORY report to LE. How would a drunk driver be any different? HIPPA has caused all kinds of problems for LE to investigate crimes. For example, we had a woman disappear. The woman's family reported it to us. We entered her in the statewide computer system and spent untold man hours hunting for her. We finally heard a rumor that she might have been headed to a hospital somewhere. We called the most likely hospital in a nearby city. We told them that we wanted to just know if she was there or not because the family was worried sick. They told us that they could not release that information! Finally we talked to everyone all the way to the hospital administrator and he finally confirmed that she was there. We wasted many hours that could have simply be solved by a simple "yes she's here". HIPPA was good intended but it is causing a lot of problems. |
| Like others have said, alot of the problem is that hospital administrators don't know HIPPA. From LEO admin standpoint someone from the dept needs to discuss HIPPA in detail with hospital admin before a situation arises and have an understanding on what they can and cannot share with law enforcement |
Oh, I fully understand that one. I've got kind of a connection to the hospital...I understand. |
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I am a hospital supervisor. According to my legal department it is a violation weather we like it or not. I would love to see DWI's put under the jail and am aware of all the ethical considerations of not calling the police. ETA: HIPPA does allow for information to be released in any circumstance that the health care profesional judges to be necessary. As a policy administration has to say no. If the health care provider releases information and later it is judged to be a mistake, they have a policy to cover themselves. Nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of idiots in every career field. |
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HIPPA Privacy Rule covers " Individually identifiable health information ". Reporting a vehicle leaving the hospital property DUI is not individual health info unless hospital staff discloses patient care or individual info about a patient. Also [ 45 CFR 164.512(f)(5) ] gives an exception -- "the covered entity believes that the information is evidence of a crime that occurred on the premises. |
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We have several hospitals & other health care facilities in my AO. All run by different parent companies. We used to deal with this all the time, however, a couple of years ago we had one of our judges (a liberal, former defense attorney at that) sit down with the administrators & clarify a few things reference this. The biggest issue was asking the staff, particularly ER & CCU staff, call us when a WOW subject or a suspect already charged with a crime who was admitted for treatment up to several days, for example, when they were released so we could pick them up. They were refusing citing HIPPA laws. Dept staff explained to them that this was not a violation for the reasons already cited by previous posters. Finally, the judge mentioned above was able to compel the hops administrators to do as we asked provided the outing HIPPA laws were not knowingly or intentionally violated to satisfy our wants. Provided that we as LE already have the personal intel & often times are already aware of their medical treatment, the hosp staff aren't divulging too many details on the patient/suspect. The obvious exception would be all the minutes documented in their personal health records, etc., while being treated which isn't a concern to the responding ofc unless there is a health condition that jail staff needs to be aware of. We aren't tying to steal patient info for our health, but apparently too many health care administrators believe that we are & up to no good given their liberal nature for many. Not always though, but several I've personally dealt with are overtly "hostile" toward LE & seem to use HIPPA as a way to attempt to throw down a speed bump. |
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Not to be a jerk, but your post makes a point that I have been making about healthcare for the past few years. #1 - It's not HIPPAA it is HIPAA. HEALTHCARE INSURANCE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT I DON'T MEAN THIS TO BE CRUEL OR TO BE A JERK, BUT THE SAME PEOPLE THAT ALWAYS WOULD TELL ME THAT I WAS DOING SOMETHING THAT MAY VIOLATE HIPAA COULDN'T EVEN SPELL IT RIGHT. I LOVED TO ASK, "WHAT'S THE SECOND 'P' FOR?" AND THEN HEAR THE RESULTING BLABBER. #2 - Who exactly enforces HIPAA as far as 'PRIVACY' is concerned? Or should I say who effectively enforces punishment for HIPAA violations as far as 'PRIVACY' is concerned. I WORKED FOR A RADIOLOGY GROUP FOR 5 YEARS AS THEIR PACS/IT DIRECTOR AND NEVER DID I GET PAID A VISIT BY MY LOCAL 'HIPAA REP'. CAN THINGS BE IN VIOLATION? SURE. BUT IF YOU AREN'T BROADCASTING THEM TO EVERYBODY 'HIPAA' BECOMES ALMOST UN-ENFORCEABLE. After working with PACS for 5 years I learned a very simple rule regarding HIPAA. Do your best to secure personal information and respect the privacy of patients. This is something I would want others to do if I were at their mercy regarding things like my SSN and the like. But when other people are telling me that I am not correctly securing a terminal because I don't simultaneously employ biometrics, passwords, and smartcards they are full of shit. In my experience HIPAA was more of a scare card used by vendors to get your business. |
+1 I couldn't agree more. |
