Hippa?

[kreamer10]

I have a "hypothetical" scenario and would love your experienced input. Thank you in advance for your time.

An in Town, non transporting, non billing Ems and Fire are dispatched to a domestic dispute for a 21 y/o male who has been struck in the face. Upon arrival you learn that a member of your fire department is the person the police have in custody for striking the patient. He has also struck one of the officers and has been tased. He refuses treatment. You treat the 21 y/o male who also refuses transport.

Back at the station you tell one of your superior officers about the incident so that they are aware that a member of the department was involved, including the information about striking the officer. You do NOT discuss the medical side of it (removal of the taser prongs and treatment of the superficial wounds.)

In a later officers meeting the Chief states his concern that this issue should not have been discussed and even wants to write up the two Ems providers for a Hippa violation.

My opinion from my limited research and knowledge is that this is a non issue as far as Hippa is concerned. No medical information was discussed and that the company does not fall under Hippa as they do not electronically bill for services.

Again Thank you for your time and Input. Have a great day.

[DFIB]

Even if medical information had been discussed if the the superior officer is in the medical chain of command and has access to the PCR's it would not be a HIPPA violation.

Edited March 6, 2012 by DFIB

[Just Plain Ruff]

HIPPA is found here http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/

your Chief better get an opinion from the department attorney before he writes these guys up or he's got a lawsuit on his hands until he can prove that this is a HIPPA violation.

He's probably going to lose.

If I were you, I'd stay out of this or since you have entered the fray by jumping balls deep into it by posting this on a public forum, give your two buddies the website above and this phone number when they get written up. 1-877-696-6775 and have them ask for someone from the Office of Civil Rights and tell them that they believe they have been wrongfully disciplined based on a supposed HIPPA violation. That will get the Office of Civil Rights involved and if they were wrongfully disciplined I believe the fine can range upwards to 50,000 for each occurrence so it could be as high as 100K for the both of them. But with appeals from the Fire department and city the fine/penalty will be something actually like 5000 and since they were the whistleblowers they are entitled to I believe 10% of what was collected.

I only know this because I helped a friend in a whistleblowing case and he now lives on a ranch outside of Nashville Tennesee. His case was much much larger though. His award was around a million dollars

But let me know how this works out.

[island emt]

HIPAA has nothing to do with your supposed scenario.

You are not a covered entity period. End of discussion.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/index.html

Whether or not your departments privacy/confidentiality rules were violated may be another story.

Seeing how you are from small town nude hampster, I'd wager a guess that everyone in town knows that one of your members was arrested for assault within 8 hours.

I'm also guessing that the arrested fair haired boy is one of the chiefs" crew".

It sounds like you did the correct thing in reporting the incident to your supervisor and now they want to spank you for doing the right thing.

Page wolfburg has a lot of info on their website.

hopefully the chief has enough smarts to walk away before going down this road. If it does happen go to the state attny generals office and file a complaint.

I Know this is all hypothetical!!!

PS. I would beg for them to write me up. It would be a great way to pay for a nice vacation.

[BEorP]

Seeing how you are from small town nude hampster, I'd wager a guess that everyone in town knows that one of your members was arrested for assault within 8 hours.

[...]

It sounds like you did the correct thing in reporting the incident to your supervisor and now they want to spank you for doing the right thing.

Setting aside HIPAA because I know almost nothing about it, I don't think that the "hypothetical" actions of the crew were appropriate. Surely there must be some formal channel for the department to be informed of criminal issues of one of its members (even if it is that the member is to report it). I would consider even revealing the identity of a patient to a supervisor to be a breach of confidentiality (especially when that is someone who is known to the supervisor). The fact that they could look it up themselves in the patient report or that "everyone knows" since it is a small community has nothing to do with it.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Yep 10% of a 50K award in a whistleblower case would pay for a really nice trip to mexico or maybe moving expenses to a nicer city than Greenville New Hampshire.

But I've never been to Greenville so I can't say it's not a nice city.

But if your chief wants to go down that road and discipline the crew then the Office of civil rights wants to talk to that crew.

but yeah, they should not have gone to the supervisor or chief or whoever they went to and tattled on poor joey who got in twubble with the law.

I'll bet that the chief already knew about it long before the supervisor knew about it.

As a matter of fact, I'll bet the chief was woke up 5 minutes after Joey got tazed and subdued.

And I can almost bet my next paycheck that this isn't the first time that chief Ballbreaker has gotten a phone call at 3am about little joey. I could be wrong but I'll bet not.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Captain Kickass

[DwayneEMTP]

Yeah man, HIPAA covers the electronic transfer of information as it relates to billing. None of those things applies here.

You 'captain' was trying to sound smart while at the same time proving himself to be ignorant.

And a hosemonkey getting tazed for punching a patient and a cop? Yeah, violate me, write me up, fire me, but that's a story I'm telling to EVERYBODY!

There is no possible scenario, from the information that you've provided, that can cause this to become a HIPAA issue. He's talking out of his ass.

[JPINFV]

I have a "hypothetical" scenario and would love your experienced input. Thank you in advance for your time.

An in Town, non transporting, non billing Ems

Stopped reading here. Not a covered entity, so HIPAA does not apply. State and local laws may vary.

[paramedicmike]

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Thank you to those who correctly referenced the acronym.

[BAYAMedic]

Wow Dwayne, we know you have firemonkey issues but what I find more concerning is your open invitation to "violate me".... Did you by chance mean find you in violation? Or were you wanting something else...... Weird pararescumen ninjas these days.....

Fireman1037