You’ve probably heard of HIPAA — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — which aims to ensure the privacy of patients at hospitals and other healthcare settings. Basically, the idea is that nobody should see your private health information except for the people who need to (i.e. your doctor).
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Recently, Redditor u/un_occupied asked, “Healthcare workers of Reddit, what is the most egregious HIPAA violation you’ve witnessed?” and there were a shocking number of even more shocking stories. Here are some of the most infuriating ones:
1.
“I work at a nationally known hospital. It never fails that every time a celebrity comes in, someone gets fired for looking at their chart.”
NBC
2.
“I worked in a small rural healthcare clinic. By the time a patient got home after an appointment, her family already knew that she was pregnant. Good thing she was happy about it. She did not want to pursue any action against the clinic. The staff involved had some disciplinary action, but weren’t fired.”
3.
“When I was in RN school, one of my classmates was assigned a female patient who had a stage 4 pressure ulcer on her coccyx — this was down to the bone and really awful looking. The wound care team had taken a photo of it, and that photo was in the patient’s chart.
My classmate removed the photo from the chart and took it home with her, where she showed it around to her family and also a teenage neighbor. The neighbor told her parents, who were so outraged that they called the school and reported it.
When our clinical group showed up at the hospital for our next class, which was two days later, the instructor tore into her in front of the whole group. She didn’t deny taking the photo, and in fact, had it in her backpack. She said she was going to return it to the chart. She apologized but didn’t seem to think she had done anything too wrong.
She was kicked out of the program. We were only a month from graduation, too.”
4.
“Happened to me. I was getting a physical for life insurance. The person doing the physical was someone I knew from work (this person did insurance physicals as a second job). I had to tell her that I was newly pregnant for the paperwork. I told her not to say anything because I was still early in the 1st trimester and wasn’t ready to tell anyone outside immediate family. I’m at work a few days later, and someone congratulates me on my pregnancy. I’m like, ‘What the hell, how do you know?!’ I knew how she knew. I reported her to the insurance agency.”
Vice
5.
“A job (sales and not at all medical related) I used to work at was constantly getting faxes from a local doctor’s office meant for a hospital. The contents were orders for procedures and included detailed medical histories. We called the doctor’s office multiple times to inform them that they were leaking private info, but it kept happening for months. Then I started calling the patients instead. Someone must have raised a stink because we soon stopped getting them.”
6.
“I once saw a specialist at a major hospital in my state’s largest city. I had just pulled onto the interstate when I took a call (hands-free) from one of my best friends. He said, ‘So, is your Social Security Number XXX-XX-XXXX?’ He got it perfectly right. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I’m at (that doctor’s office) in the waiting room and your whole paper chart is just, like, open on the check-in counter, no staff are around right now. Hey, I didn’t know you’re allergic to (thing I’m highly allergic to)!’
I had words with that office, and immediately had myself discharged from care and went elsewhere.”
7.
“My partner came out of a well-check at a new GP’s office CRYING because the doctor had neglected to properly ID him. She walked in and immediately started talking to him about HIV medication. He didn’t, and does not currently have HIV, but little did she know, he had a dirty needle stick like eight years earlier while working as a medic at a hospital, and just always had it on the back of his mind, even after being cleared. When he started freaking out at this (idiot) doctor she apparently waved him off saying, ‘Oh sorry, wrong chart,’ but he was already panicking and demanding to see his test results… so instead of NOT violating HIPAA and showing him HIS results, she turned the screen so he could see the name on the chart that wasn’t his. He was telling me all this through sobs in the parking lot after getting up and leaving the office, and I had half a mind to march in there myself and give her a ‘lecture’… but I opted for reporting her to the medical board, her employer, the ombudsman, and we switched him immediately to a different provider.”
8.
“I had an ex who got fired on their first day for verbally giving someone their (positive) HIV results in the middle of a crowded waiting room.”
9.
“A guy at the hospital I used to work at looked up a patient’s information to get her number and proceeded to message her because he thought she was attractive. She filed a complaint (and rightfully so) and posted it on Facebook. Last I heard, he still worked there but just had to change departments.”
Hulu
10.
“A man sending patient data to some woman he met on a dating site. The woman sent proof to the boss. The man was married, not to that woman.”
Related: 15 Men Who Tried To “Educate” Women About Their Own Bodies And Failed So, So Miserably
11.
“Purchased a used copier, previously owned by a medical clinic. They didn’t clear the copier memory before delivery and it had hundreds of patient file forms stored on it, including sensitive demographic data and SSNs.”
12.
“The military pharmacy gave me someone else’s meds just before closing time. I didn’t realize until I got home. We were both prescribed the same set of meds, our names are very different.
You bet your ass I went right back there in the am to get mine, return the others so that patient could get theirs (and not be told they already picked them up) and the next time I came in they had a whole new system that actually had the patient verify their birthdate for the system when logging out meds.
I was being treated for a muscle spasm so I know me and the other patient had a very uncomfortable night.”
13.
“Had a celebrity come into the ER discreetly prior to a local performance. Ended up having several nurses and residents access this person’s file inappropriately.
The other was a radiologist running for Congress a few years ago who campaigned on his many years of saving lives as a radiologist. On his social media, he shared an image of a patient’s postmortem X-ray of their shotgun-blasted head, disparaging our hospital (where he was a resident in his younger years) and our patient base. The X-ray clearly had the patient’s name on it. I got the distinct honor of burying his ass across all media for the clear violation of patient privacy and lack of medical ethics, and filing multiple complains against him.”
CBS
14.
“I had to fire an employee for HIPAA violation. She looked up lab results on a friend who was admitted to the hospital. She was caught, counseled, and put on probation (per hospital policy). She was caught less than six months later doing the same thing, looking up results out of concern for a friend. She was then fired.”
15.
“We do inpatient hospice on our oncology floor. Night nurse called the family of a different patient to let them know the patient died and details about what was next.
Needless to say, the daughter of the patient who was still very much alive was super pissed.”
16.
“I was with my BIL and niece in the ER because they had just been in a car accident. Nothing too serious, but niece was a baby and needed a once over and BIL was having back pain. The ER doc walks into the room to speak with them when he gets a phone call. He takes the call and, still in the private ER room with my family, proceeds to give (and spell) the name, date of birth, previous medical history, and current condition of another patient. We all sat there in awe. I worked in a hospital at the time and knew this was a serious violation and still regret not at least giving him a courtesy ‘Um, you shouldn’t be doing that,’ but I was too shocked to even speak at the time.”
Related: 57 Low-Key Terrifying Photos That Gave Me Goosebumps — But That I Couldn’t Look Away From
17.
“My mom used to work at the local hospital. When my older brother was hospitalized because he was actively dying from an STD eating his brain, one of her co-workers went around telling everyone they worked with.
And, yes, my mom did file a complaint.”
18.
“Know a nurse who shared a patient’s birth story in great detail on her Instagram for clout. She was reported, and all the hospital made her do was delete it. No other consequences.”
NBC
19.
“I did consulting at a clinic, and one of the docs always took all the lab results (big stacks) home to sign off. One day, the doc stopped for lunch and left about 200 patients’ lab results on the table.”
20.
“Patient here. I don’t know why the X-ray viewing lightbox was in the hallway, but I sure bet Greg Smitherson didn’t want me to see the X-ray with his pelvis…and the shadow of his penis.”
21.
“I asked for my medical records from a therapist I saw once because I needed them to apply for life insurance. The office sent me someone else’s therapy record, notes and all. I made a huge stink. “
NBC
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