Posted by Raw43 on 3/24/09

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Good afternoon,

I have a situation where I feel my rights have been
violated under the HIPAA law.

This past November, I had to call an ambulance because I
was having trouble breathing. Upon the ambulance arriving,
they asked for my medical history, which I provided.

After being transported to the hospital, the doctors could
not find anything wrong, thus they discharged me and
indicated that it was probably an axiety attack brought
upon by stress.

In February of this year, I received a phone call from the
Clayton County (GA) Department of Finance - they are the
ones who do the billing for their ambulance service, and
they were requesting my correct mailing address, because
the bill they sent to me came back to them as
undeliverable. I provided my correct mailing address to
them, and then they sent me the bill.

The bill had apparently been opened by someone in the
process, and they took the bill, folded it up, and then
just put it in an envelope and sent it to me.

When I opened the bill, I was mortified, because on the
ambulance bill, they had actually printed a diagnosis - the
diagnosis was not made by the hospital, nor by the
ambulance service - it was the information I had provided
to them about my pre-existing medical condition. It was
printed on the bill, by the billing department for the
ambulance service.

I called the CCDOF, and told them what they had done. The
person who took my information indicated that the person
who does the billing was not in the office today, but she
would make sure that they called me back on Monday. She
asked how I was able to decipher what the codes were on the
bill, and I informed her that there were no codes on the
bill - they actually wrote out what I had told them my pre-
existing condition was. Two and a half weeks went by, with
no returned phone call. I then called them yesterday, and
spoke to someone on their legal team - apparently when I
called the first time, it was reported what I called and
said to them, and they escalated it directly to their legal
department. I spoke to that representative, and she
indicated that I would be receiving a phone call back. I
have yet to receive a phone call back from them.

Possible HIPAA violation, 3/24/09, by Raw43.

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