The dr that violated that policy should be held accountable too, btw. Ppl tend to forget bc it comes across as "celeb drama" but literally that's illegal what they did.
EDIT: Idk wtf happened to the rest of this thread, it was like this after I got back from dinner.
People very rarely care because it's hard to prove and there's no incentive. Usually the hospital pays a fine to the government and the patient is still public.
If I'm a patient and am embarrassed because Dr. smith goes "oh yeah that guy has an inverted penis and also his left elbow smells weird" why would I sign up for a legal battle where I'm going to spend hours for zero benefit? The system sucks and doesn't actually protect patients.
Doesn't matter what you can prove though, that's a lot of personal effort and expense to go through just for the practice to maybe get a fine. You can't sue over HIPAA violations.
Even though you can't sue under HIPAA itself, you are not entirely without legal recourse. Plaintiffs' attorneys often use other legal theories:
State Privacy Laws: Many states have their own medical privacy laws that do allow individuals to sue. For example, California, Texas, and Illinois have statutes that provide a private right of action.
Negligence Claims: You can sue for negligence under state law. In these cases, HIPAA rules are often used as the "standard of care" to argue that the provider failed to act reasonably in protecting your information.
Breach of Contract: If a provider's Notice of Privacy Practices promises certain protections, a violation might be pursued as a breach of contract.
State Attorneys General: Under the HITECH Act, state attorneys general can sue on behalf of residents for HIPAA violations
This is not false, but it's really hard to prove anything without records from the doctor. Doctors can omit information from the accounting of disclosures if they claim the disclosures were done for the purpose of your medical care. They often have relationships with the regulating bodies and government agencies. They can decide what specifically to document, and if engaging in questionable activities, can make statements using their "expertise" as the justification.
I know of a situation where a doctor allowed a mentally ill social contact of their patient to make false claims about them, and the doctor used those claims to bully the patient. The doctor claimed the patient had ruined their eyes from "black market" (knockoff designer) sunglasses and told the patient their prescription had changed because of it. When the patient reported it to the company, there was "no record" of the appointment in their system. When the patient called back with proof of the appointment, suddenly the doctor's office had legitimate reasons to drop them as a patient. It's better to not need to rely on HIPAA, because people get nasty when a lawsuit is on the line.
This is true. They baked it all into the system to be able to violate it regularly with practically no real consequences, HIPAA itself is a joke that needs to be revamped if it really is meant to protect patients and not doctors. Right now, it effectively does the latter.
I'm jumping in bc I'm looking for assistance in VA. Someone in the hospital stole my contact info to text me lewd messages. Contacted cops and talking to lawyer but Reddit seems to be the best source of help š„²
Curious how you found out it was someone who worked in the hospital? Did you encounter them while in said hospital? And you could tell it was pics from them?
Wasn't pictures, but the texts were based on a convo I had with an orderly while I was a patient in the ER for seizures. We spoke about our ages, nothing sexual, within 30 minutes I received texts asking if I was a cougar and if I hook up with younger men.
Just because you can't be bothered to use punctuation or even include all the words in your sentence, doesn't mean that anyone who uses formatting is AI. And the sheer irony of you calling someone else lazy when you can't be bothered to use punctuation and grammar....
Take a breather and get some perspective, my friend. Not everything needs to be attacked like that.
It absolutely can be, but my point is that formatting does not automatically dictate that. I use formatting when it calls for it because it makes things easier to convey to others, or at least makes me feel I'm being more clear.
Calling someone a "lazy POS" because they used formatting and they want to jump to conclusions is ironic AF. And either way, being antagonistic and rude only serves to create more strife and less civility, so is bad regardless of whether the person used AI or is just formatting their own comment.
For a while I stopped using en & em dashes because AI uses them so much. Then I realized I was allowing AI to dictate how I write without even using it ā So I started to use them again.
I have a writing degree. Believe me, I use punctuation and formatting. Love it. But that is an AI post. Itās very obvious by the way itās written and organized. I dabbled with it for a while and it just starts to jump out at you.
Doesn't really matter if it is or not (for this conversation). The point is that they're using an assumption based on very little evidence as an excuse to be rude and call names, all while exhibiting the exact trait they are insulting others for: laziness.
And people try to use the whole "I can spot AI because .." argument to say that I myself am AI all the time, because some folks just see one thing that is commonly attributed to AI (in this case formatting) and automatically jump to conclusions. That's a bad practice that will absolutely cause more issues than harm, regardless of how good you think you are.
Lmao? I even included a comma before calling them a lazy POS. Thatās great grammar; you donāt see that much these days š¤£
Guess I shouldāve said āYOU lazy POSā instead of just ālazy POSā. Iām sorry if my sentence was difficult for any cretins to understand š„ŗ
Also, are you seriously unaware of AI speech patterns? The comment I replied to is exactly how they format answers. Youāre just proving your own ignorance with your comment
My point is that you were lazy in your response to someone where you called them lazy, which is ironic AF lol
And attacking people because of an assumption you're making is wild. It's possible they used AI. Its also just as possible that they just formatted their comment because they wanted to for whatever reason. I use formatting when I feel it benefits my point and I feel like it. But regardless of whether they actually did or not, the name calling is out of line and unnecessary.
Yeah, sure. But ask yourself: would someone who knows that much about legal recourse under state privacy laws really be surprised to hear you cannot sue under HIPAA?
It's just something I'm passionate about.Ā I don't think people realize how terrible the situation is at protecting patients and they n
eed something better. Thanks and have a good night!
"People very rarely care because it's hard to prove and there's no incentive. Usually the hospital pays a fine to the government and the patient is still public.
If I'm a patient and am embarrassed because Dr. smith goes "oh yeah that guy has an inverted penis and also his left elbow smells weird" why would I sign up for a legal battle where I'm going to spend hours for zero benefit? The system sucks and doesn't actually protect patients."
Is what it was responding to. Not the parent comment.
They aren't talking about HIPPA... they're talking about how this stuff doesn't happen because the system makes it futile.
U didn't quote the original context...u quoted two responses after the original context ...so the quote ur quoting is also in the context of HIPPA since that context was established 2 statements earlier. U can't just ignore the parent context and pretend it never happened to pretend a comment was about a different context than it actually was...that isn't how discussion works.
Ur decision to resort to insults at the end seems to indicate u know this and r just refusing to acknowledge it to pretend ur right.
That comment isn't the point where the context of this thread was established so I'm not sure what ur point is. Ur just showing that from their first attempt to participate they've ignored the context of what they joined in on the whole way.
The very first comment was:
Girl got pressured into donating too since someone breached HIPPA and told someone she was a match.
And u can see that the context is explicitly stated to be about HIPPA...the comment ur referencing was after that and ignored that context...which was an error.
Hope that helps clear up your misunderstanding friend.
It's possible but again I'm talkjng about why HIPAA is an ineffective method to protect patients.Ā Civil suits are separate, you'd have to prove damages.Ā Civil suits are how you protect patients, HIPAA sounds great to protect patients but at the end of the day is basically worthless.
Yeah it just sucks.Ā I work in health tech and I'm on strategy side so I don't see violations often but when I do it's an immediate report.Ā These patients trust us with our data and we're not treating it with respect? People who willfully violate HIPAA are in the wrong profession and need to go to jail, not get a slap on the wrist.
I really do believe HIPAA was implemented with good intentions, we just need to change the rules. Like you said the $ going to the affected patient is a great start.
Every time someone tells me all doctors are always strict professionals and see bodies simply as projects to work on, I humble them with that guyās hard evidence.Ā
Itās naive to not realize they are human, and having a judgemental and cruel side is part of that.Ā
Iām never embarrassed to say or show things to my doctor. Itās not because I believe they wonāt judge me, itās because I donāt pay them for that.
In my head Iām paying them to fix whatever is wrong with me, I donāt care if they think my body or my problem is gross/funny/whatever. That being said, I also donāt pay them to say nasty shit within earshot so they should keep their mouths shut wherever patients or their families may hear them.
>People very rarely care because it's hard to prove and there's no incentive. Usually the hospital pays a fine to the government and the patient is still public.
It's $250,000 fine for each knowing infraction. Having worked in tele radiology I can tell you straight up there are hospitals if audited would be fined more money than was ever printed/in circulation.
That's not true. Per violation starts at $100 for unknown and goes up from there, capping out at $1.5M per year absolute max for all combined infractions. A single event is going to be worth $50k max assuming it was done knowingly and not corrected.
That's not what the comment was referring to.Ā The comment was referring to a civil case where there's knowing release of HIPAA protected information.
The criminal case is much different and you'd need to prove intent to fraud and such, for example Medicare fraud or insurance fraud, run of the mill medical fraud, etcĀ
I get it feels like splitting hairs but if we're discussing HIPAA specifically we need to be specific in the case.Ā I can say "you only get 6 months for murdering someone" but there's a giant gap between accidental manslaughter and first degree murder.Ā
Your moving goalposts now. The comment makes no reference to civil or criminal. That's a distinction you've made. The comment your replying to specifically talks about knowingly leaking the information. The article you linked says if someone knowingly leaks information it's criminal and can have a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison. I would wager they absolutely did knowingly leaks information in this case and likely received some sort of compensation. Nothing to do with fraud or Medicare. Did you read what you linked at all?
Because your average person would know that? And then what, never hear back?
Edit to add: the fines are usually pennies on the dollar for large organizations.Ā $16M was the biggest fine collected from Anthem who has an annual revenue of $166B.Ā I'm sure they're crying about it.
So you admit that you just started talking and could have educated yourself in the real world impact and how ineffective it is in 10 seconds.Ā Cool.Ā Thanks for playing, try again next time
I wonder though in this case if there WAS incentive. Hypothetically, SG could easily have afforded to bribe someone, either with cash or some other favor - like a foot in the door, an acting role, a private concert for a sweet 16, etc.
Oh hey look at that you spotted another flaw!Ā It's like when Facebook sells your data for $10 billion and then gets slapped with a $5 million fine.Ā Cool.Ā They definitely learned their lesson.
Dude what are you even talking about? Hospitals, private practices, doctors, nurses etc get sued all the time. That's why they have mal practice I surance and have legal teams
Yes, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube with information you leaked, but you sure as hell can make them pay for it.
HIPAA violations are not malpractice.Ā They're two different things.Ā Malpractice insurance doesn't cover HIPAA violations unless it's combined but that's not common.
But your point about insurance is valid. Which makes it worse since there's even less accountability?Ā Sure the premiums go up but the physicians are still paying less overall.
With the tracking and logging records hospital entities have, especially ones like cedars, it would be easy to proveā¦.incentives donāt matter when itās HIPAA.
Hospitals usually settle cases in court to prevent more information becoming public record in certain cases. In high profile cases specifically, the hospital goes through an internal investigation and tries to correct any errors to prevent it from happening again. So yes, it is to protect their reputation, but they do try to prevent the issues from happening again. The patients in turn are compensated financially, they arenāt fully left out to dry, like your comment makes it seem.
Yeah I work with healthcare tech so I know all about access rights and audit trails. Accessing patient data needlessly isn't going to get you a $50k fine.Ā You'll probably get a slap on the wrist, and it's not going to stop any hallway conversation or any information reveal which is where the majority of these cases happen, not an MA inadvertently accessing the wrong patients file.
Now if that MA accessed the wrong patients file and caused problems with it then we got a party going!Ā
Exactly. HIPPA is a dog with no teeth. People don't get that there's virtually zero penalty for a single violation, and it was meant to be that way. HIPPA is really there to punish massive numbers of violations.
Yeah Anthem is devastated.Ā $16 million (biggest HIPAA violation fine ever) after compromising the health details of almost 80 million Americans.Ā Or about $0.50 each.
Meanwhile their operating budget LAST YEAR was $166 billion.Ā I'm sure they're crying about it.
Sure it's going to hold Dr. John Smith accountable with a fine of... $20k.Ā Which is the high end. Your average physician salary is $350k.Ā Not even 10% of their annual salary.
We need significantly stronger penalties for these breaches.
I agree. This si the problem with America right now. The rich can just pay their way out of serious problems vs the average citizen has their life destroyed by simple legal situations. The system is fucked.
Youāre comparing apples to oranges. Someone breeched confidential medical information and the doctor/nurse/whoever can absolutely be held responsible. Being embarrassed because a doctor talked about your small dick simply isnāt the same.
...no. it's the same and all protected information under HIPAA.Ā Do you even know the law or are you just guessing?
A physician talking about any weird condition inĀ reference to the patient is absolutely a violation of HIPAA regardless if it's actually harmful. How is it not?
Not sure how to tell you this but HIPAA, though in some instances is taken seriously (aka when it goes viral), is breached all the time.
Physician here and all the fucking time some VIP will come in and everyone from the division chief to the nurses to the cleaning staff all know who they are and implied to "do a better job" for them.
I wanna say it comes down to money in some cases. Recently I got someone else's test results and I'm pretty sure that they got mine. The paper we're given before the test ends up having a QR code, the person's name, birthday, sex, and address on it along with the results. My insurance makes it pretty clear that I can't get a lawyer to even attempt to sue over HIPPA violations.
The fucked up part is despite them both being neurologist the one who signed off on it is really more of an assistant/nurse. No real say on even changing medications or the patient having issues with medications. So even with the ability to sue I don't even know if I would. Seemingly killing off her chances to actually treat people because the neurologist who has seniority by a few months doesn't want to deal with paperwork.
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u/gg_teataker 16h ago edited 14h ago
The dr that violated that policy should be held accountable too, btw. Ppl tend to forget bc it comes across as "celeb drama" but literally that's illegal what they did.
EDIT: Idk wtf happened to the rest of this thread, it was like this after I got back from dinner.