Missing Woman's Family Says HIPAA Rules Blocking Search

thekansascitychannel.com ^

[chance33_98]

Missing Woman's Family Says HIPAA Rules Blocking Search

38-Year-Old Woman Missing For Months

POSTED: 5:20 pm CST March 22, 2004 UPDATED: 9:13 pm CST March 22, 2004

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- A Lawrence couple searching for their missing daughter says the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is blocking them from important information that could help them find their daughter, KMBC's Emily Aylward reported.

HIPAA is the law that keeps patients' medical records private. The bill was introduced in 1996, but wasn't strictly enforced until 2003.

Marilyn Anderson and her husband have been searching for their 38-year-old daughter since she disappeared nine weeks ago. Leslie Smith (pictured, left) was last seen at the Lawrence house she shared with her mother and stepfather.

"She didn't take anything. Her purse, her ID; she took nothing with her," Anderson said.

Smith had been seeing a counselor at the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center at the time of her disappearance.

"We know the last call she made was to her therapist at the Bert Nash Center, and all we wanted was for them to tell us what number she called from and at what time," Anderson said.

But the health center said it cannot legally provide that information. President Richard Johnson said HIPPA guidelines are inflexible.

"The law is the law. This is not a case about the rules -- the law is the law," he said.

Anderson thinks her missing daughter should be an exception, but Johnson said that's not possible. Bert Nash officials said they have tried calling the phone number themselves, but turned up nothing.

Smith was last seen driving a brown 1990 Plymouth Voyager minivan (pictured, above) with a missing driver's side mirror.

[Capriole]

I sympathize with health providers: they face a $50,000 fine if they violate HIPAA. HIPAA is a curse.

[Tennessee_Bob]

HIPAA is sooooooo much fun. I love being able to deny needed information to caretakers.

/sarcasm off

[Cate]

CAN WE ALL SAY 'THANK YOU MADAM HILLARY FOR ONCE AGAIN STICKING YOUR FINGERS WHERE THEY SHOULDN'T BE?" We are all still feeling the effects of her meddling in healthcare issues. Ugh. She was just afraid that somehow slick willy's records would be exposed, like other parts of him.

[japaneseghost]

What about the Medical Information Board? I just signed an insurance application today that said the insurance company would check my record against whatever the Medical Information Board has on me. Said all hospitalizations are kept on record by this board.

Why isn't this Hippaa law keeping the MIB from my personal information? Something is truly wrong here.

[upchuck]

Parts of HIPAA are very good. Most of it truly sucks and should be repealed.

The average person has no idea what it has cost the typical medical practice to implement some of the outrageous provisions of this piece of crap. And guess who pays for this. Right, the insurance companies. Sure they do...

[Weirdad]

Unfortunately Bob Dole's Republican Congress passed the HIPAA fascist monstrosity. We beat Hilliary in 1993-1994 before the Republican Congress, and then went right ahead and passed her fascism incrementally. So also thank Bob Dole and all those Republicans who swore to uphold the Constitution but who never read the 9th and 10th Amendments and continue to illegally micromanage our Republic.

[Cate]

You are right, there are others we need to thank for this mess, but it madame did start the ball rolling with this one. I was in the field when she started pulling her pranks and it just keeps adding on every year. I've switched to the law enforcement arena, and even there HIPAA is a nightmare. Hospitals fight us tooth and nail to keep the patients name from the officers, but we're supposed to have them use 'safety precautions' as the unknown criminal is considered a danger to any law enforcement. How dumb is that? I can see not releasing the information on the grandmother in for the flu, but please, a known criminal who has confessed to a capital crime, and is a danger to himself and others, we're not allowed to ask his name? Unfortunately, it will take some innocent person getting hurt before this law is amended.

[cherry]

that's because contrary to what it espouses, the HIPPA rules actually spell out the many,many, many agencies that your private medical information can be sent to.....

As explained to me, the HIPPA rules really pertain to the ability of you to carry your insurance to another job, and the privacy stuff was thrown in and now is the main focus of the legislation....

tell you what folks...the credentialing agencies that check on hospitals and other medical/health facilities would go out of business if they didn't keep coming up with new "guidelines" to make everyone jump in unison.....

every year its a differant emphasis....one year Hippa..one year "goals" and one year "restraints".....

next year, I expect the new in vogue guideline will be about making sure our patients all get to vote absentee ballot........

[3catsanadog]

Amen. I'm a CNA at a nursing home and technically we can't know if a resident has AIDS or Hep C or dangerous contagious diseases. They just say use universal precautions (gloves and wash your hands before and after you work with a resident).

Fortunately, the age generation I deal with now weren't promiscuous or needle drug addicts or bug chasin' gays.

But I don't know what I'd do if I unknowingly worked with a person with a blood-borne disease and he or she coughed up bloody phlegm and it hit me in my eyeballs. I don't wear gloves on my eyes.

All this idiocy transpired to protect the gays and their self-inflicted fatal diseases.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

"Hospitals fight us tooth and nail to keep the patients name from the officers, but we're supposed to have them use 'safety precautions' as the unknown criminal is considered a danger to any law enforcement. How dumb is that? I can see not releasing the information on the grandmother in for the flu, but please, a known criminal who has confessed to a capital crime, and is a danger to himself and others, we're not allowed to ask his name?"

Are you saying the hospital called the police to tell them they had a criminal who had confessed to a capital crime?

[Cate]

Thats exactly what I'm saying. And we sent officers into a situation where they had no idea who they were dealing with. Granted, the officers are trained to be ready for everything, but any information is helpful. Due to HIPAA, no information was given to them ahead of time, including what crime the patient had confessed to. Doesn't make any sense to me.