[Red Steel]

I had no problems asking about a patient if he were in the hospital over the phone.

[Valpal1]

Please consider that the hospital may have asked the patient if he wanted the hospital to disclose that information at the time of admission.

Our church distributed model authorizations to our elderly and frequently ill members when HIPAA first became law. It had become a problem that we would not know they were there and could not find out and thus could not visit them, find out if they needed us to bring them something from home or feed their cat and mow their law.

Now the local hospitals include various HIPPAA authorizations as part of the admissions process.

[TNdandelion]

Where I live, I have to give the hospital permission to release that information. Even if I visit the ER, they ask me if I want the hospital to let anyone know if I'm there should they receive phone calls.

It's not automatic.