Can Reporting a Theft Violate HIPAA

[Dogmatique]

...you don't know when your room-mate had major surgery?

Okay. We'll be here.

[The Evil Wil Wheaton]

Eleven months ago—July of 2011. I’ve known her for over ten years; she started renting from me about three weeks ago.

[Dogmatique]

She shouldn't be needing that script 11 months post-surgery.

If she IS needing that kind of rx this far out? She has bigger problems and shouldn't have been released back to work. And this alleged theft has happened 3 times?

Seriously, someone isn't being upfront about the situation.

[The Evil Wil Wheaton]

Arthritis is a progressive disease. Now it’s extending up her spine. It’s not going to stop until she’s dead. First it was her knees (both have been replaced), then her hip (and the degeneration there is continuing) and so forth. The pain comes and goes. Sometimes she can go for months on end with nothing more than ibuprofen, and then sometimes she has to pull out the big guns. That’s just the way it works. As for the drugs being stolen three times, yeah—she’s a little dense, as I’ve already indicated. I rummaged through my closet and found a box containing several trillion pill caddies; I told her to take her pick and stop taking her drugs to work with her. She finally started listening to me, and now the problem is solved. And the first two times it happened, the junkie wasn’t quite as greedy; she just swiped a few. So it took a little while for roomie to figure out what was going on.

And she’s been cleared to work by two real MDs who graduated from two real medical schools. They’re both monitoring her situation quite closely for any changes that would require further attention.

[Dogmatique]

I'm still not buying it, but it matters not. There has been no wrongdoing (at least not where HIPAA is concerned).

End of story.

[Dogmatique]

HIPAA governs disclosures of the medical privacy of others. Stealing pills in no way falls under medical privacy under HIPAA. Just don't talk about the person's medical procedures.

This thread is months old - the poster is long gone.

And even worse? You're giving the poster NO new information. Knock it off.