[Svartalfiar]

HIPPA is to protect the employer, not the employee.

The employer is under no obligation to keep any and all health information private.

Huh? Actually, HIPAA is to protect the consumers' or employees' information, not the employer or business. Certain business entities that retain PHI (protected health info) CANNOT disclose said information to third parties. If your employer is not a covered entity under HIPAA, or what happened wasn't a HIPAA-related occurrence at their business, then HIPAA doesn't apply to the employer.

Now if your employer was a hospital, and your daughter was born there/in their NICU, then yes, you'd probably have a HIPAA case. But outside of that specific circumstance, HIPAA would most likely not apply.

Side note, I fail to see how your daughter having been in the NICU would be detrimental to you and potential employers...? How is that even related?

[redgolum]

My former boss told an potential employer “His daughter was a NICU baby, and you know how expensive they can be be long term.” So while there may be other reason I did not get the job, the fact that my former employer made dang sure everyone in the industry knew how much it cost for my kid was crappy. I now know they reached to two competitors at least (one flat told me later, and another one I have a contact there that talked to me about it).

My employer also had a habit of leaking treatment and specific medical information to, well, everyone in the plant. Since they self insured, they had access to everything and felt that talking about how much employee X cost the company for healthcare was a good review of performance. At times, in mass meetings where they would say “Your health plan is going up by %5 because employee Y has cancer.”

I was handed the cost of my daughter’s treatment and told by my now former boss “We spent X on your kid. YOU ARE EXPECTED TO EARN THAT BACK PLUS INTEREST!” This was in a formal, documented, review. I had not signed anything saying the company could know what the specific procedures were, but they had it straight from the hospital.

Contacted several lawyers. None would touch the case. One was kind enough to say “you might win, but would you win enough to live on for the rest of your life? No one will hire you after you sue in your field.”

Forgive me if I have any faith in HIPAA. Experience has shown that it is nothing.