You should be VERY upset. This is a repeating pattern of a serious transgression you keep fixing.
You should absolutely report your whole story to the links others have so kindly dug up.
You should also change medical practices immediately, and tell the old practice (and, heck, the new also if they ask) why you are changing.
I see lots of practices obviously putting significant effort into getting this right. That your current one is doing it so badly is pretty remarkable. Not to get too paranoid, but, I wonder what else they are doing badly?
I pay for my kids’ health insurance. My son lives with his mom (my ex). Through some weird mixup my doctor’s office automated phone reminder system called my ex’s phone number (which has never been mine). I was pissed.
I called to report it. I received three phone calls, each call extremely apologetic over the situation, as the investigation proceeded. It was a weird computer glitch type of thing, only happened once, but they took it very seriously.
The OP’s situation should be reported and appropriate legal help sought.
This is why a lot of places I know will not actually reveal any actual medical information in a message. They will remind you that you have an appointment, but they will be careful not to make it clear where that appointment is.
I mean, HIPAA is so strict that you have to sign off on the ability for them to make those types of calls anyways, just in case someone else has access to your voice mail.
I’m trying to figure out why the custodial parent isn’t the one who should be notified of appointments and such, since she’s the one who needs to get the kid TO said appointment.
No, the mix up was due to my insurance company having my son and daughter on my plan. For some reason my insurance data put my son’s contact phone number (his mom) into my medical data (different doctor and all).
My doctor’s office explained that when they went 100% computerized there were a handful of glitches, mine one of them. So my doctor dialed my son’s number for some weird reason.
To echo everyone else: it is serious, I would be FURIOUS, and since it keeps happening and no one seems to care, I would absolutely report them. I would also probably change doctors. But please do report them. If no one in the office cares, it will happen to others with perhaps more serious consequences.
If anything you are underreacting. I would flip the fuck out if I’d fixed this, TWICE, and it happened again. No way. Report them.
Have you discussed this with the Doc, or just the office manager? The office manager may be playing it down since they know for a damn fact that if the Doc or the HIPAA officials find out this is going on their ass will be very thoroughly grass. This is a very big deal, please make sure you talk to whomever is in charge at that office right away.
As the wife of a Doc, I say talk to the Doc himself, or if this is a big multi-doc office, go higher up the food chain (Privacy Office, if there is one). Ultimately it is the Doc’s ass on the line for HIPAA violations if it’s his sole practice, and he needs to know his OM is an idiot.
Update:
Discussed with doctor, office manager, and larger corp’s pracctices manager.
Apparently issue arose because my kids, who reside at ex, are on my insurance.
I opined that in 2013 this is a bullshit problem - it is not as if they just got their I S , and odds are slim I’m the only divorced daddy in their practice. Net result is they will review their data managent system, and have a fix written for this particular issue. They will keep me updated on this fix. I will not file a complaint at this time, provided they follow through. There is no question in my mind that after my 2nd conversation with the office manager, this will never again happen to me, but I want to see a more universal solution. I really like my doctor, and I also prefer fixing problems over punishing mistakes, which is why I didn’t file a complaint, despite the excellent reasons for doing so outlined by a number of you. Thank you for the responses, they were instrumental in helping me get this issue resolved.
Note the remark I bold-faced. I’ve similarly had problems where I had to ask: Could I possibly be the first patient with whom this has come up?
I belong to a major HMO in California. They are divided into separate service areas, which mostly follow county lines. I’ve moved from one service area to another several times. EVERY DAMN TIME they get my address changes screwed up one way or another, and it takes multiple phone calls with their so-called customer service to get it fixed. First of all, the plan contains several parts that I have to sign up for separately, and EVERY time I move, I have to re-enlist in several parts, and it requires several separate forms. NOBODY in their so-called customer service seems to know them all, and it’s difficult to find someone who even knows all the right forms I need to submit, let alone who will actually send me those forms. Then there was the year they apparently discontinued one of the forms, but they didn’t discontinue the requirement that I must submit it to stay enrolled in one of their benefits. Then there was the time they somehow didn’t get the form I sent, and they dis-enrolled me from one of the optional add-ons, and strictly couldn’t undo that. I had to file a formal grievance to get that fixed.
Every time, I had to ask them: Haven’t you people ever had a patient move from one county to another before? Am I really the first one? How can you possibly have your change of address procedures so utterly un-debugged?
Then, they have members’ addresses in several different places in their databases, but the standard change of address form only gets one of those places updated. That’s just their procedure, they said. But customers would normally not know anything at all, nor should they know, about their internal data procedures. You have to ask them to update your address on “Screen 2” or it might not get done. In order to do that, you have to know you need to ask them, which you might only know after you’ve spent many hours on the phone with them trying to find out why they keep sending you address verification requests.
In the press. All of the news stories went on and on about privacy rules, but not one peep about what it did to make insurance more portable. I never saw any evidence that it did anything to increase portability in any meaningful way. Can you find even one instance of a well publicized HIPAA violation that had anything to do with insurance portability? I sure can’t.