2y ago

Tennessee hospital faces civil rights investigation over release of transgender health records

apnews.com Tennessee hospital faces civil rights investigation over release of transgender health records

Hospital officials have confirmed that Vanderbilt University Medical Center is facing a federal civil rights investigation after turning the medical records of transgender patients over to Tennessee’s attorney general.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is facing a federal civil rights investigation after turning the medical records of transgender patients over to Tennessee’s attorney general, hospital officials have confirmed.

9 comments

Wow and a half — everywhere I've worked in the health biz, even before HIPAA, patient confidentiality was the prime directive.
The article doesn't even say there was a search warrant, only a request for records from Tennessee's horrific Attorney General. If there was a legal demand for the records, it should've been fought, but instead the records were turned over pronto, with no redactions of personal information, and the patients weren't notified until months later.
In a sane world, that would cost Vanderbilt a lot of millions of dollars, but I've looked at a map of the galaxy and you can't get to a sane world from here.

how is this not a HIPAA violation?
- It likely fell under a permitted disclosure, as the AG stated they were pursuing a billing fraud investigation. Maybe still a case, if the disclosure was unnecessarily broad though.
  Per Health and Human Services:
  Health Oversight Activities. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to health oversight agencies (as defined in the Rule) for purposes of legally authorized health oversight activities, such as audits and investigations necessary for oversight of the health care system and government benefit programs.
  https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/index.html
  
  wow, thanks for the very specific answer.
  as always, cruelty is the point.
- General bigotry.
  It is a HIPAA violation, but the bigots say that trans people aren't people, so HIPAA doesn't apply. They fucked around and now just might find out. Sadly, they've already done a lot of damage be releasing this information.
  
  so fucked up