Does this violate Hipaa for paid medical collection?

[angielynne]

I wrote a letter to the collection agency that is responsible for 8 negative tradelines on my CR. Several are from a hospital and one is from a dr's office.

I wanted to make sure these were mine.

What they sent back to me astounded me. I expected them to basically have an account number and a payment amount and maybe a date of service. They sent me screenprints directly from the hospital records of EVERY SINGLE THING that happened on those service dates...right down to the doses of drugs given, lab supplies used, and very detailed about the procedures.

Is this a HIPAA violation that a collection agency would have this much detailed informaion? SHouldn't they just have very vague info with account info and billing info. I feel kind of violated knowing that every worker at that agency has detailed information about a very personal problem. This office is holding 6 paid medical collections and 2 unpaid ones that I am currently making payments on. Does this give me leverage to work to get these off my report. The CA won't budge, but maybe the hospital would if this is indeed Hipaa violation.

[Recovering Attorney]

There is no private right of action under HIPPA.

What you do , I think, is write the CA and oneor more of teh providers and ask to see the agreement between them. if they don't have one to show you, you will consider it a HIPPA violation and will turn them in to the FTC and your AG. See if that gets a rise out of them. Don't forget to add that you feel this is inaccurate or wrong and should be deleted from your CR

[texastac]

I found this information on the internet, don't know if it will help. I work in the medical field and that sounds like a violation to me. We can't even talk about a pt's condition/diagnosis with fellow coworkers unless they are directly involved in their care. I would look at the paperwork you signed on admissions to the hospital and unit and see if there is a clause on any papers that you signed that would give the hospital permission to share your information with a 3rd party. I would also look for a piece of paper that lists the way the hospital would use your personal information according to HIPPA guidelines. I get this sort of information everytime I see a new healthcare provider.

----------------------------------------------------------------

UNPAID MEDICAL BILLS AND YOUR PRIVACY-HIPAA AMENDMENTS

Medical collections may become more difficult for collection agencies to collect and useful for debtors in clearing up their credit records.

The Privacy Rule requires a "business associate" (collection agency or billing firm) to reasonably limit the amount of information disclosed for such purposes to the minimum necessary as well as to abide by reasonable requests for confidential communications.

This could be a loophole for debtors against collection agencies because collection employees often know less about their industry restrictions than does the debtor. This could lead to violations and eventually case law to support such violations. If collection agency employees are not careful, they could lose out on collecting medical debts by inadvertently knowing too much about the debtors medical condition. This will no doubt lead to many consumers seeking that the debts be pulled back by the medical provider to avoid potential suits against the provider.

Debtors who know how to protect themselves will use this provision to threaten collectors and gain the upper hand in settling the debt without it hitting their credit reports. Basically, debtors who discover that the collector knows their diagnosis and treatment will threaten the agency that their privacy has been violated. The agency, wanting to avoid unnecessary suits will most likely agree to remove the negative entry on the consumers credit report by agreeing to settle with such terms. The debtor will gain a clearer credit report by having the item removed rather than listed as "paid collection".

Here is a link for information about HIPPA: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/

[virtualrn]

I agree-sounds HIPPA violation to me-we even have to get legal involved when hospitals refuse to send f/u info to our dedicated fax line when say, we are investigating a death due to their fear of "HIPPA" However, I recall reading some thread in here saying a CA isn't so tightly bound to this. Now if you told them this info was sent to your neighbors and he opened it, that would be entirely different....