And already discussed by me and @imaguid! It isn’t a long thread to read thru before commenting.
I don’t fault people who don’t live here for not knowing there isn’t a mandatory reporter law for abortions. I’m quite sure it is on the GOPs wish list for the next legislative session. But maybe check on that before giving the snitches a pass for trying to ruin Ms. Gonzalez’s life
What part of “the woman having an abortion is not a crime” did you not get?
This is absolutely incorrect, and you really need to let it go, as you’re bordering on actively posting misinfo.
I work in the insurance industry and we have to deal with HIPAA compliance and authorizations regularly.
HIPAA does NOT compel anyone to be a mandatory reporter; it exists to protect patients’ confidentiality with their medical providers.
No it isn’t a “vault,” as anyone who uses any 3rd party tech to track their biometrics should know, hopefully; but HIPAA is a legally binding confidentiality contract, and not… whatever it is that you’re trying to twist it into here to make your point.
Did you read the article at all? This wasn’t a felony crime. It wasn’t a crime at all! It was a self-managed abortion. Texas has yet to make a law criminalizing the pregnant person.
There is a law that makes it a felony to perform an abortion on another person. It very specifically does not apply to the pregnant person. Chapter 170A of the Texas Health & Safety Code.
If the hospital workers thought they had a legal duty to report the crime they would have 1. Reported it to the hospital ombudsman or attorneys so the legal experts could make the legal determination and 2. Reported it to the sheriff, municipal law enforcement agency or Rangers. People don’t report violations of law to the DA unless they think the LEA won’t think there is a crime. Which there wasn’t.
Finally, there is no mandatory reporter law for abortions. It isn’t like child abuse where a failure to report is itself a crime
Instead, someone new this DA would ignore the law and order Lizelle Gonzalez arrested. And by going straight to him, instead of appropriate and normal channels.
The fact a pregnant person in Texas cannot be charged with a crime for having an abortion is an absolutely critical fact to get right. They’ve already terrified all the doctors into risking lives. It is wrong to spread the idea a woman could be charged for her own abortion. It is also wrong to imply the medical workers were justified or legally obligated to report this abortion to a corrupt DA. There is already enough misinformation
Police never ever arrest anyone on something they perceive wrong or against their authority. Doesn’t happen.
Sure; if you just happen to be White, straight and male, it’s quite the rare occurrence, I hear…
They aren’t crazy. They are misogynistic controlling assholes. Crazy people are often perfectly fine people.
Why are you intent on giving these people a pass? If they sincerely thought someone at the hospital had violated the law, they would have gone through the normal and appropriate channels for reporting suspected criminal conduct by an employee. They would never have exposed the hospital to the liability of violating federal law.
They should be sued, individually, for whatever money they have. They should also lose their licenses to practice medicine. If the hospital doesn’t fire them for this, I’ll be shocked. A rural hospital can’t handle this kind of legal exposure. They cannot afford it.
FFS, this wasn’t a case of someone telling the cops “I think a doctor at my hospital performed an illegal abortion.” This was a case of someone at the hospital telling the cops “I think this woman had an abortion.” If that’s not a violation of medical privacy then what the fuck is?
Like, do you even HIPAA bro?
None of that is how it works. Disclosing confidential patient data is a crime. Coming up with a thin-ass excuse for doing so, especially in the case when that patient was specifically harmed by the action is a serious crime. This is exactly the kind of thing HIPAA was written for - to prevent harm to patients from uncontrolled disclosure of their personal health information. Accidental disclosure of patient information is enforced. Accidental disclosure that causes harm is severely punished. There’s nothing about this case that mitigates that.
And yet again;
YOU ARE WRONG:
"The HIPAA Privacy Rule contains an exception for law enforcement purposes that permits a covered entity to disclose PHI to law enforcement officials without patient authorization under the following circumstances: The HIPAA Privacy Rule contains an exception for law enforcement purposes1 that permits a covered entity to disclose PHI to law enforcement officials without patient authorization under the following circumstances:
For purposes of this exception, “law enforcement official” is defined broadly and means an officer or employee (state or federal) who investigates or conducts an official inquiry into a potential violation of law or prosecutes or otherwise conducts a criminal, civil or administrative proceeding arising from an alleged violation of law. Some examples of law enforcement officials include officers, investigators and detectives from a sheriff’s office, the FBI and state agencies.
Clearly fucking not, since he thinks HIPAA (not HIPPA) allows medical professionals to just arbitrarily share patient info with law enforcement unsolicited.
# 45 CFR § 164.512.f.5 - Uses and disclosures for which an authorization or opportunity to agree or object is not required.
snip
(5) Permitted disclosure: Crime on premises. A covered entity may disclose to a law enforcement official that the covered entity believes in good faith constitutes evidence of criminal conduct that occurred on the premises of the covered entity
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-C/part-164
I think I cited that correctly - apologies if I didn’t.
I mean it’s right there - if you - in good faith (and while I don’t ever think the whacko’s have good faith - I’m going by what’s going to hold up in a court here) think there is a crime happening you can report it without violating HIPPA. There is a difference between what you are allowed to give to law enforcement without consent, and what you are allowed to report. I’m honestly shocked anyone thinks that a privacy law would shield someone and provide cover for reporting a crime.
I would direct your attention to the words “on the premises.”
Good faith does not cover cases where one has misunderstood the law. It’s their responsibility to know the law. You can’t just say, “I totally thought that was the law, but I thought so in good faith, so it’s all good.”
A few years ago I proposed an idea to my wife to resolve both the question of abortion access and gender-affirming care (regardless of age); extend HIPAA to say, essentially, that no entity can have access to a patient’s treatment information beyond their care provider, insurer or those the patient grants explicit access and it is an offense for any other entity to even have possession of that info, much less act on it. Make violations a punishable crime (license revocation for professionals, criminal punishments for third parties) annd explicitly state that the only regulations regarding acceptable care can come from the FDA and accepted medical care organizations. Call it the “Medical Privacy Freedom Act” or something. I don’t know if it would work, but it seems like a great way to back door both issues.
Roe was ruled on a implied constitutional right to medical privacy, a campaign based on “you thought you had a right to medical privacy all your life, but this SCOTUS took it away” should be good.
And now you have shifted the goal posts from the hospital workers being required to report the abortion the woman performed on herself to HIPAA doesn’t prohibit them from reporting it.
But there was no crime and anyone working in a hospital in Texas would know it. They all know that a woman cannot be charged for having an abortion. Particularly in an ER. Also, as I have mentioned multiple times, hospitals have protocols for reporting crimes that aren’t subject to mandatory reporting laws and would require the disclosure of patient information. The snitches didn’t follow them. They also didn’t report the crime to a police officer but to a DA.
There wasn’t s crime. There wasn’t a basis to believe there was a crime. There is no reason to give these people the benefit of the doubt for ruining a woman’s life. not just costing her money or two days in jail but the otional trauma of a criminal prosecution. There is nothing but malice in reporting the abortion to the DA and nothing but malice in attempting to charge her for murder.
Please don’t bother replying. I’m done
Biden-Harris have done this in a half measure - there is a rule that if you get care in a place where it’s legal - then you can’t report that to another state where it’s illegal - because the patient is from that state.
I can only assume this addition to HIPPA was only necessary because that reporting wasn’t a violation prior.
Biden has done good - this rule doesn’t directly interact with the whackjob states so it is hard to challenge in a court - to do what you are saying would require congress to actually pass legislation.
edit - it’s not a law but a rule - which if he made nation wide would end up going to our ever reliable supreme court.
We’re 40something posts deep into a thread where professionals working in the legal and medical fields have explained again and again why your understanding of HIPAA is incorrect and you haven’t even moved beyond calling it “HIPPA.”
Maybe time to stop valuing your own assumptions over other peoples’ actual knowledge and experience.
… unless you’re a cop
All your points being incorrect is the cake; misspelling HIPAA is just the frosting.
So, at this point, when representatives from healthcare, law, insurance and clinical research (I may have missed a few) have explained how HIPAA applies in this case, are you still throwing shade at the rest of the BBS? Or have you caught up with the fact that in Texas,
-there was no crime
-the not-crime did not take place on hospital property
-would have been reported through the hospital first, not straight to the DA
-any crime relating to abortion in Texas would involve healthcare workers, not the patient; thus disclosure of patient confidential information was not necessary unless compelled
Another really important fact you (somehow) might not have picked up from your HIPAA training is the concept of minimum disclosure; namely, that when a disclosure is required, it be done so while revealing the minimum possible patient data. In this case, if there had been an abortion performed at the hospital and these healthcare workers had been questioned by police, they had an obligation to reveal the least possible patient data to comply with the requirement. So in Texas, that would be limited to which hospital, which provider, and the date and approximate time. Believe it or not, that information along with the procedure type constitutes confidential patient data because it can be traced back to a patient. Revealing the patient name or even their hair color would be a HIPAA violation, even while sitting in an interrogation room at a police station.
If you are working or volunteering in a job that handles confidential patient data, you need to know the above so as not to get in trouble with federal law yourself. It is not sufficient excuse under HIPAA to upload a patients full health record to the internet just because you think they may be running an unlicensed daycare. That is how tenuous your argument in this thread is.
