Your daughter's medical record is none of your business

Your job could be in jeopardy

As parents, we want to know the health of our children even when they are adults and no longer under our insurance. Parents feel obligated to want to know everything about their children. Parents believe it is their responsibility to raise a healthy child throughout the child's life.

I happen to be working on this project with a pharmacist who was very knowledgeable about the medical facility. He had been working there for almost fifteen years, and all the nurses liked him for his intelligence, soft-spoken voice, and openness.

On this team, there were five of us working on a very complex cloud transition security project, and we spent lots of hours in the medical facility. We had a good team, and the project was moving according to plans, and we bonded and felt good about the progress we were making on the project.

On this one day, a team member, the pharmacist looked out the window and saw his daughter coming to the medical facility. It surprised him to see her because she was in college, and he did not know she had any medical problems.

The young lady was over eighteen and wanted to get some medical advice from her family physician as she had sustained some broken bones while playing touch football with friends. Her father did not know about the incident because she lived on campus when the injury occurred.

When my team member saw her enter the door, he did not immediately approach her. He continued working and waited until she was leaving the building when he approached her.

They talked for a moment, and she left and went back to university.

My team member came back anxious and was not happy with her daughter. He disclosed to the team that she would not tell him why she went to the medical facility.

This inquisitive team member playing the role of the parent wanted to find out why his daughter came to the medical facility. Since he has worked in the organization for over fifteen years, he had access to medical records and did not relinquish his access to medical records systems.

He went into the medical records system and started looking at his daughter's medical records and the reason for her coming to see a physician. Reading the transcripts of the visit and the physician's diagnosis and prescriptions did not satisfy him. He called one nurse to discuss his daughter's visit and his take on the physician's actions.

My team member complained about the physician's actions and asked the nurse to talk to the physician about how to treat his daughter. The concerned nurse did not speak to the doctor but called the Medical Records department. The nurse was in shocked when she escalated the matter to the Medical Records department. When the Medical Records department brought this case to his management, they reprimanded him for violating company policy.

Protected Health Information (PHI) is confidential information, even if they are our relatives. Also, if we have the professional knowledge on how to treat the patient, a relative cannot access PHI unless they have the authority and have been authenticated to review the family member's medical records.

This act by my team member violated the Patient Privacy Act as stipulated by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). According to HIPAA, you are not responsible for protecting the health information of your relatives. HIPAA considers the physician and the medical facility "covered entities" and are the ones responsible for the security and safeguarding of medical records. According to US Department of Health and Human Services (2017), "The Privacy Rule does not require a health care provider or health plan to share information with your family or friends unless they are your personal representatives."

They released my team member from his job, and we sent a message to the organization regarding accessing PHI even if it belonged to a close relative. HIPAA does not permit us to see our relatives PHI unless allowed and have a medical reason for seeing the records.

If my team member was concerned about the health of his daughter, he should have talked to his daughter and ask for permission to see her medical records. In this situation, he did not request for the authority, and he violated the company policies and the organization fired him.

References

US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (2017, June 16). Your rights under HIPAA-Family Members and Friends. Retrieved from HHS.GOV: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals/family-members-friends/index.html