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HIPAA Violation?

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>Charlotte<

Lurker
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? South Carolina.

I've confirmed what I'm pretty sure the answer is by reading some old posts, but I'd like to ask just to make sure. Can't find a thread that has quite this particular scenario.

TL;DR short version: is a doctor's revelation to a patient that he has HIV a HIPAA violation, if she tells him in front of another person? The other person happens to be his wife, but the doctor did not know that. That's basically it.

If you need more details:

A doctor walks into a hospital room where the patient and his wife are sitting. Without acknowledging the wife's presence, knowing who she is, or asking who she is, she tells the patient he has HIV. The patient is furious and insists the doctor should have told him in complete privacy or, at least, first ascertained that his "guest" was someone he would want to have knowledge of this diagnosis. He is insisting it's a HIPAA violation and that he's going to sue.

He may calm down and drop it, but he's likely to try to pursue this and I'm sure he's going to ask me for advice.

I think the legal implications are that she *could* have been just some random person sitting there, but she wasn't. She was his wife. "Could have" doesn't count. Although for that matter--is a spouse some kind of default approved contact, or should the doctor have told the patient in confidence even if she had known that was his wife?

More importantly, I can't imagine there will be any "damages" regardless of what happened. He would have immediately told his wife in any case, so if she leaves him (extremely unlikely) those might be damages, but she would be leaving him because he has HIV, not because the doctor told him he has HIV in front of her.

I don't think he has anything here, and intend to tell him so (and why) if anybody can tell me I'm right. I'm still going to encourage him to speak to an attorney simply because he shouldn't take legal advice from anybody but an attorney.

I'd appreciate any opinions so I'll be prepared to talk to my friend when he's ready to talk.
 


ecmst12

Senior Member
I'm thinking that if someone is in the exam room with a patient, the patient has given implied consent for that person (wife or not) to hear whatever the doctor and patient are going to discuss.
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
I cannot see any HIPAA violation here.

Even if one was present, the most your friend could hope for would be that the caregiver was reprimanded. Certainly there would be no financial compensation.

The wife is not automatically entitled to her spouse's medical information without his consent. Simply being married doesn't confer any rights to his medical info.

But even that aside, there was no HIPAA violation.


(Incidentally, had your friend been in a double room and the doc walked in and gave him bad news while the roommate was present - even that doesn't constitute a HIPAA violation. He should view this the same way)
 

Perky

Senior Member
I agree that your friend won't see any compensation over this, but I'm not so sure it wasn't a violation.

If I'm reading this correctly, he would have had to agree to the discussion of his diagnosis before the doctor disclosed it in front of anyone:

Section

Though the following only shows the guidelines for one hospital's HIPAA policies, it may indicate that there was a violation:

HIPAA - Incidental Disclosures of PHI
 

>Charlotte<

Lurker
I'm thinking that if someone is in the exam room with a patient, the patient has given implied consent for that person (wife or not) to hear whatever the doctor and patient are going to discuss.
It wasn't an exam room, it was a regular hospital room. He was in bed, his wife was in a visitor's chair. The doctor walked in, flipped open a chart, and said "Mr. X, you have HIV". I suppose she assumed it was his wife.

Okay--thanks, guys.
 

karaann07

Junior Member
It wasn't an exam room, it was a regular hospital room. He was in bed, his wife was in a visitor's chair. The doctor walked in, flipped open a chart, and said "Mr. X, you have HIV". I suppose she assumed it was his wife.

Okay--thanks, guys.
Ah, see, this changes things, IMO. I agreed that a guest in an exam room gives implied consent, but a guest in a hospital room, during normal business hours, does not. Even when giving birth to my children, the medical staff always verified that they were able to speak freely about any medical concerns when my husband was in the room BEFORE they did so, just in case he was, in fact, some random visitor.
 

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