HIPAA

Suffice it to say I have spent a fair amount of time having to know about HIPAA rules.  Furthermore, my employer puts a higher priority on it than most.  So I was assured throughout this process that all of my information was so confidential. . . ergo, the reason I have been so evasive during these posts.  Doesn’t make sense?  I didn’t believe them!

Whaddaya know?  I was right.  Information missing, vital information, and it is revealed to me by a slip of the tongue just exactly how it might have gotten lost.  Now, you either have all that information kept at your own desk for your eyes only ~ or you don’t.  Some questions are just black and white.

As my SO stated so eloquently last night upon this discovery, the parties involved probably wouldn’t realize that we would very likely know coworkers who could be walking around with all of my medical information.  We grew up in the backyard of my employer.

Now, this is not a violation of HIPAA.  Not whatsoever.  However, I have been told since the day I began working here how very protected my medical information is.  I work  there, and we are all human. Mistakes happen.  Papers get dropped when carried from office to office, etc.  But that is not what was told to me.  I asked point blank about the ‘rabbit trail’ of paperwork, and was told it went directly to the intended person.  No shortcuts.  It is my nature to begin questioning a lot of things when the little things start having holes in the story.  A dam doesn’t break overnight, but generally has pressure building over time.

Can I control this?  No.  Am I happy about it?  No.  Does it encourage open & forthcoming communication from me?  No.  By my very nature I cannot lie.  My face literally distorts when I even try to deceive someone.  I work very hard to find something positive to say when I am asked my opinion about something, and I have to come up with something that won’t utterly destroy a person who has just made a major decision.  Please don’t ask me! 

On the other hand, when I am the recipient of such situations I am going to put my guard up.  I will give others the benefit of the doubt all day until they give me reason to do otherwise.  Then I am likely to reveal as little about myself as I absolutely must.  For clarification of matters, this is hardly the first time this has occurred, but I did feel for a long time that I had some trust built up with one of the parties involved.  Others in the company definitely are not so compelled towards honesty. 

It is a character trait that I put at the top of my list when evaluating every person I come in contact with.  Is this a one-time situation because you are uncomfortable, or is this part of how you would be described?  There is a major difference between the two situations because to assign persistent lying as a character trait in someone who is in behaving in an unusual situational manner is a rush to judgment.  Soon you would find fault with everyone, and no one could measure up. 

We all have standards by which we judge people.  Hard for some people to admit, but it is true.  Sometimes it is by things that are beyond a person’s control, which is fairly defined as bigotry.  Sometimes it is based, as we are seeing, purely on a person’s political beliefs.  I am being honest ~ ha! ~ by saying this is probably the top critera factor by which I evaluate a person.  What is yours?