Is it illegal for a hospital to hide the doctor name from patient? I had an ultrasound at a hospital. The doctor over there gave me some recommendations. I wasn’t sure about these recommendations and wrote an email to the management asking other doctors to review those recommendations. They did review and provided an answer. I asked for those doctor’s names. Hospital refused to disclose. Is hospital violating any laws?
In this statement of &quot;Patient Rights &amp; Responsibilities from Nash UNC it is said that: A patient has the right to know the names and the jobs of his or her caregivers. But I do not find any actual law that establishes such a right. Hospitals usually have a policy that doctors and other caregivers must wear name-tags and identify themselves to patients, but that does not necessarily apply to questions after the fact, nor can I be sure that any law mandates such a policy.
34 CFR Subpart D covers this topic ("Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?"). This includes The disclosure is to other school officials, including teachers, within the agency or institution whom the agency or institution has determined to have legitimate educational interests so that raises the question of whether there is a legitimate educational interest. Additionally, the question is raised as to the status of an SRO (they are not teachers). Disclosure is allowed to A contractor, consultant, volunteer, or other party to whom an agency or institution has outsourced institutional services or functions may be considered a school official under this paragraph provided... the conditions being that the person Performs an institutional service or function for which the agency or institution would otherwise use employees; Is under the direct control of the agency or institution with respect to the use and maintenance of education records; and Is subject to the requirements of §99.33(a) governing the use and redisclosure of personally identifiable information from education records I would take this model memorandum as the most likely agreement, though your district may have a totally different memo where SROs are purely security guards. An SRO is to advance the program objective which include "Education of children regarding the role of laws, courts, and Police in society", which is the hook into "legitimate educational interest". This nothwitstanding the part that says that they "are police officers and not school teachers, school administrators, nor school counselors. The officers will assist teachers with classroom presentations on relative topics when requested and able" (there is no principle that only teachers, administrators, or counselors can have a legitimate educational interest). This model memo does not say anything that indicates that the conditions "Is under the direct control" and "Is subject to the requirements of §99.33(a)" are true, but those conditions could be satisfied external to the MOU. There are some additional exceptions of the "if required by law" type, such as a state law "adopted before November 19, 1974, if the allowed reporting or disclosure concerns the juvenile justice system and the system's ability to effectively serve the student whose records are released"; or, after that date, is "subject to the requirements of §99.38" which refers you to §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). If that is confusing, here are the two self-referring sections: §99.38(a) If reporting or disclosure allowed by State statute concerns the juvenile justice system and the system's ability to effectively serve, prior to adjudication, the student whose records are released, an educational agency or institution may disclose education records under §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). The disclosure is to State and local officials or authorities to whom this information is specifically...Allowed to be reported or disclosed pursuant to State statute adopted after November 19, 1974, subject to the requirements of §99.38. So state law is one possibility; "legitimate educational interest" is a remote possiblity. Massachussetts law does include governmental third party disclosures: 603 CMR 23.07(4)(c) A school may release information regarding a student upon receipt of a request from the Department of Social Services, a probation officer, a justice of any court, or the Department of Youth Services under the provisions of M.G.L. c. 119, sections 51B, 57, 69 and 69A respectively. That does not directly apply to local police, but it is possible that a police officer is operating as a probation officer or an agent of the Department of Youth Services. Under paragraph (e), A school may disclose information regarding a student to appropriate parties in connection with a health or safety emergency if knowledge of the information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other individuals. This includes, but is not limited to, disclosures to the local police department Mass. law allows the possibility of treating a police officer as "authorized school personnel" if they are "providing services to the student under an agreement between the school committee and a service provider, and who are working directly with the student in an administrative, teaching counseling, and/or diagnostic capacity" – which is not completely out of the question but is a bit of a stretch (especially in the context of a blanket statement "we share records", not "we may share yours, if you get special counseling"). Tne law also says "Any such personnel who are not employed directly by the school committee shall have access only to the student record information that is required for them to perform their duties", so sharing of all records would not be allowed.
This is a perfectly common question. &quot;What is your full name?&quot; &quot;Do you have any aliases?&quot; &quot;What other names do you go by?&quot; Like any other question, though, it must be relevant, and you should be prepared to explain why it is relevant. If the court allows the question, the defendant must answer.
Disclaimer: I am not familiar with US law, so this answer is from a general perspective. It should apply in most jurisdictions, though. Are there any laws or regulations which I can use to convince a hospital's billing department to talk to me, despite the fact that they have a clear policy otherwise? No, I don't think so. A company or organization is generally free to decide for themselves who will or will not communicate with you - I don't think there is any law giving you a right to choose. How would this even work? What if the people you ask to talk to are overworked, on vacation or just not qualified? However - you do have another, more important right: To be considered valid, a bill must provide credible evidence that the charges are justified. You cannot just ask someone to give you money, you must actually provide a reason why you are owed money. In this case, this means the hospital must send you a bill that you can understand and verify. To get this: First, stop bugging them over the phone. Once a point is reached where legal action seems likely (like in your case), any information you get is only really useful to you when in writing. So do everything in writing. It's fine to talk to them if it helps solve the problem - but insist on getting things in writing afterwards. The first thing you need to write is a formal letter that you refuse to accept the bill, because you cannot verify it. Outline in details what parts you cannot understand/verify, and ask for the information you need (such as what the codes mean). Once you have received a satisfatory explanation of the bill (which may take multiple letters), you go through it with a fine comb, and dispute any items that you think are unjustified. You may need the help of a lawyer to exercise these steps, but in principle you can probably do it on your own, too. Whether you get a lawyer is ultimately a trade-off (making a mistake may cost you money, but hiring a lawyer costs money, too). A first consultation with a lawyer is probably not too costly (ask first!), and may help you to decide whether you need more assistance.
I did not write "confidential" on my letter, but I assumed a business proposal is automatically considered as a confidential material. An incorrect assumption unfortunately. Unless you have a confidentiality agreement (NDA) with the first company, they and their agents are not under any legal obligation to keep information you share with them confidential. How is the legal situation here? There is none on your side. You lied about a direct question asked and were caught in the lie. Company A had no obligation to keep what you sent confidential. Even if they did, that may not (depending on how the confidentiality agreement is worded) keep the employee of company A stating that they had received the same proposal. Chalk this one up to a lesson on confidentiality and honesty in business. There are no reasonable assumptions of confidentiality in business unless you specifically state that they are confidential or are provided as part of a confidentiality agreement.
No. This is governed by the HIPAA Security Rule which was a regulation that the HIPAA statute required the Department of Health and Human Services to adopt. The Rule does require someone covered by HIPAA to have a "Business Associate Agreement" (BAA) and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with any cloud storage provider (which would be the usual way that a U.S. health care provider subject to HIPAA would have a foreign server), but the Rule does not require that a server be physically located in the United States. The lack of this requirement is a good one, because when you are transmitting data (which the Security Rule requires be done in a secure fashion), you can't know which servers the information will end up on in a trip from source to destination. Email and all other Internet content travels through what amounts to a pony express. It goes through a variety in intermediate server nodes which can change during the course of a session, and generally speaking, you never know which intermediate nodes are used. You could be seeing this answer via a server in China, for example, and you would never know it.
You give no jurisdiction but in general: First, police have no obligation to be honest. So, yes they can collect this without consent by e.g. taking hair from your hairbrush (with a warrant) or giving you a glass of water while interviewing you and getting it from your fingerprint oils (which may not actually be technically possible but never mind that). No, they can't take it by "force" by sticking a swab in your mouth. Yes, it will almost certainly go into a database. Of course, there are some jurisdictions where police are entitled to decide you are guilty based on the fact that you didn't pay them a bribe.
The rule applies to &quot;A covered entity or business associate&quot;, who may not &quot;use or disclose protected health information&quot; except as permitted. The set of covered entities and business associates is pretty large, and certainly covers nurses, also secretaries working for the hospital or insurance company. It is not restricted to the doctor-patient relationship. However, the restriction is not absolute: a patient can consent to the disclosure of such information: but, the consent must be written. This raises an interpretive challenge, in case patient A reveals a medical fact to a friend B who happens to be a medical professional. Person B probably is a &quot;covered entity&quot;, since they are undoubtedly A health care provider who transmits any health information in electronic form in connection with a transaction covered by this subchapter. The information also is &quot;protected&quot;: Protected health information means individually identifiable health information: (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this definition, that is: (i) Transmitted by electronic media; (ii) Maintained in electronic media; or (iii) Transmitted or maintained in any other form or medium. (2) Protected health information excludes individually identifiable health information: (i) In education records covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 1232g; (ii) In records described at 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4)(B)(iv); (iii) In employment records held by a covered entity in its role as employer; and (iv) Regarding a person who has been deceased for more than 50 years. Para 5 on prohibited uses and disclosures explicitly lists the prohibited disclosures (genetic information for insurance underwriting, sale of PHI), so idle gossip is not explicitly prohibited. It is also not explicitly allowed. But again, the regulation says: may not use or disclose protected health information, except as permitted or required by this subpart Nothing in the rules limits the obligation of a &quot;covered entity&quot;, in terms of how they came to be in possession of PHI. Given the definition of &quot;covered entity&quot;, the fact of being a covered entity is a property does not depend on obtaining information electronically. So without written consent, B who is a covered entity cannot gossip about A's medical status.