When Your Health Privacy is Violated, Complain!
If a pharmacy, health plan, hospital or medical practitioner improperly shares your health information, they may have violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency with the power to enforce this Act, has a new web site that shows how it enforces the federal health care privacy standards. You can also file a complaint on their web site.
HHS' online FAQ helps explain the extent and limitations of this Act at http://www.hhs.gov/hipaafaq/index.html.
With over 26,000 complaints filed alleging some sort of HIPAA violation, the web site has statistics and summaries about the complaints. HHS also shows some of the corrective actions they have obtained from companies that individuals complained about. Other information on the site shows patients' rights to have access to their health records and to control how protected health data are used and disclosed.
The HHS HIPAA enforcement web site is at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/enforcement
You can file your complaint using the information on the web site at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacyhowtofile.htm or contact HHS by phone 1-800-368-1019; or by TTY: 1-800-537-7697; or via email: OCRComplaint@hhs.gov
For additional information on HIPAA or on your health care civil rights, contact the HHS Office for Civil Rights/HIPAA as follows: 1-800-368-1019 - Civil Rights; 1-866-627-7748 HIPAA; TTY: 1-800-537-7697; Email: OCRMail@hhs.gov
If you file a complaint at HHS and you don't mind sharing this with AAPD, please let us know. We believe there may be more and more such concerns as health records become more and more "digitized." Contact either Jenifer Simpson at aapdjenifer@aol.com or Anne Sommers at aapdanne@earthlink.net
Source: AAPD
