Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
How transparent. Move forward without the lawsuit part? Nuh-uh!! The stakes just got RAISED!!
Are these not at least four provable HIPAA violations, due to willful neglect and not corrected, each of which indicates between $50,000 and $1,500,000 in fines, and up to a year in jail for each offender?
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/phys...orcement.page? |
There is no way to privately sue (directly) for a HIPAA violation. The government can pursue criminal charges against both covered entities and individuals if it decides that files were accessed for personal gain or with malicious intent ... I would say the latter applies in my case, and I hope the government agrees, but who knows. Maybe publicly wishing and hoping for my death every day for three months doesn't meet the test. Depending on how many times my records were accessed over that multi-week period, every time is a separate violation with its own penalty. Also, the failure to notify and correct carries fines for every day not corrected. After all these months, that's going to add up. So the hospital is going to be unhappy about that. The fines will probably be more than I would collect in a lawsuit.
A lawsuit would have to be for invasion of privacy and/or emotional distress, damage to reputation, etc. It is possible but it can't be related directly to the HIPAA violations.
With egregious HIPAA violations, some people have been criminally charged in recent years just for snooping, as a deterrent to the sort of thing that has happened to me. Jail time hasn't been huge - months, usually - but has occasionally been handed out, and often fines in the $thousands along with community service. I think it's appropriate. I don't think anyone wants to imagine people snickering over their surgeries or private medical information, or taking it into the front lobby of the clinic.
Right now I am just depressed. Everyone tells me to be angry but I just want to climb into bed and disappear.