HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, October 28, 2010 ]

 

Hartford Hospital (Conn.): This is really about contract negotiations between a hospital and an insurer, but the state employee's union says the hospital violated their HIPAA privacy rights by sending them letters. I think a provider can notify patients that their insurer might not be contracted any more; the only use is of the demographic information of the patient, and it seems to be related, at least potentially, to each of treatment, payment, and healthcare operations. It might not be polite or right for the hospital to put union member patients in the middle of the fight, but I'm not sure this is a HIPAA violation.

Jeff [11:28 AM]

Comments:
If they have a self-funded health plan and used the information from the plan to contact the union members, I can see how it could be a Privacy Rule violation. Otherwise? No.
 
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