Health Information Management

Mistaken disclosure to nonphysician leads to lawsuit

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, May 26, 2008

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If you look like a doctor and walk like a doctor, you still may not be a doctor.

 

An ER physician at Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston learned this the hard way when he inadvertently disclosed patient information to someone who only looked the part, according to a May 13 article in the Boston Herald.

 

A patient was in the ER for treatment during May 2005 when his physician approached another man—whom he assumed was a physician because of his attire—to discuss the patient’s HIV/AIDS positive status, according to the article. That man, however, was the patient’s supervisor, not another hospital physician.

 

The patient is now suing Caritas St. Elizabeth’s for unspecified financial damages and a court order requiring the hospital to “review and implement safeguards against wrongful disclosure of patient information.” The lawsuit also asks that the hospital require badges or some other form of ID for staff to prevent similar inappropriate disclosures in the future, according to the newspaper.

 

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