There simply wasn’t enough time in either example for this to be the case. Both accidents occured in the evening and the solicitations were made early the next morning.
He is sending a letter to the state Bar Association but since the solicitation was by phone it may end up his word against the attorney’s. I also suggested a letter to the hospital administration concerning possible vioaltions of HIPAA.
And possibly his insurance company?
I think that specific types of injuries automatically trigger your insurance company to try to search for alternate people to pay for your care.
I broke my wrist several years ago when I fell down the steps while visiting my father. While I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation, I remember getting a call from my insurance company, making sure that I wasn’t involved in an automobile accident (where they could pass along my costs to the other driver’s insurance company), and quizzing me about whether my father was negligent. It looked like they wanted to try to pass their costs for my health coverage along to him.
Pretty unlikely that a medical insurer would do that, IME.
They tend to be the largest and most disorganized of all insurance organizations. Moreover, they probably would not get any information about the cause of the injury.
They’d be at extreme risk. They’d be violating HIPAA and state insurance laws.
They are the most protected. Insurers have subrogation rights. If an injured person sues and recovers, the insurer gets paid back much of the time. If the injured person does not sue, they often can sue on their own.
Involving a lawyer only increases the probability that the insurance company will pay more, at least in the short run.
Ditto the neighbor’s homeowner’s insurer. Getting the injured party a lawyer is a surefire way to get the neighbor sued, which will only increase costs for the insurer.
It’s quite likely you’re correct, but just an FYI: Many insurance companies are 24 hour operations now- when I worked in crisis assessment, we always had to call the insurance companies before we committed someone to verify coverage and receive the pre-certs necessary. Even at 3AM, the insurance company would be aware that we were attempting to get their client into X hospital for Y reasons.
While I agree that this act is illegal, it’s not accurate to state that HIPAA prohibits any and all release of medical information without permission. There are many situations where protected health information can be released without the patient’s permission, including: When transferring patient care (like from an ambulance crew to the ER), for payment (sending a bill to insurance) and for quality assurance purposes.
True, an important correction. Not an issue in this case because there is nothing in the HIPAA law that would allow the kind of disclosure described in the OP.
The release of information without patient permission is very tightly controlled, limited by the law as well, and must be accurately documented when it occurs. The burden of documentation, including the justification, falls to the individual or the entity involved in the release. Because the stakes are so high for hospitals if they are not compliant, there are very strict processes set up to make sure that the law is followed.
Agreed. Welcome to the SDMB, by the way.
Thanks. Good to be in a community of critical thinkers.
Anyone every try asking the lawyer how they found out about the accidents? What reasons could they give for not telling you?
Point of clarification: Patients do, in fact, give specific permission to release health information to insurance companies. It’s one of the many documents that are signed during a health-care encounter.
Robin
What reasons could they give? I’m not sure. Depending on the true source of information, the reasons that they *have *are pretty clear:
But hey, it never hurts to ask.