HIPAA Compliance also applies to Home Care

Stephen Tweed | January 19, 2023 | News and Views
By Elizabeth Hogue, Esq. Compliance with HIPAA can be complex. While many in home care don't recognize it, HIPAA applies to private pay non-medical home care as well as those heath care services provided under Medicare or Medicaid. Examples of violations, or “HIPAA stories,” may make requirements more understandable. Here are some of those stories: Nurse’s…

By Elizabeth Hogue, Esq.

Compliance with HIPAA can be complex. While many in home care don’t recognize it, HIPAA applies to private pay non-medical home care as well as those heath care services provided under Medicare or Medicaid.

Examples of violations, or “HIPAA stories,” may make requirements more understandable. Here are some of those stories:

Nurse’s Licenses Suspended

In this case, a nurse took a list of more than three thousand patients from a former to a new employer. The list included patients’ names, addresses, dates of birth and diagnoses. The nurse asked for the information in order to help ensure continuity of care, but did not receive permission from her former employer or patients to give this information to her new employer. The nurse admitted to the state nursing board that she violated HIPAA. The nurse lost her license for one year and was placed on three years of probation.

Nurse Posted Disturbing Photos of Patient on Social Media

The nurse in this case worked in the neonatal care unit. She posted pictures on her social media account of a baby born with a birth defect, called gastroschisis, which exposed the baby’s intestines. Captions under the posted pictures read:

  • “My night was going great then boom!”
  • “Your intestines posed [sic] to be inside not outside baby.”
  • “#gastroschisis.”

The nurse was fired.

Violation by Home Care/Private Duty Employees

An employee of a national franchise home care or private duty company was fired and another employee was reprimanded after violating a client’s right to privacy. Details of the violations are not available because the national franchise company signed a settlement agreement with the client that included a non-disclosure agreement.

Doctor Sentenced to Jail

The doctor in this case took a research position with a large health system for which he was not well-suited. His performance reviews were poor and he was ultimately given notice of termination of his employment. The doctor then began to spend his remaining days at the health system looking at patient records; including records of his immediate supervisor; many of his colleagues; and high-profile patients, such as well-known movie stars, televisions personalities and public officials. He viewed patient records more than three hundred times.

The information the doctor obtained was never shared with anyone. He was, nonetheless, charged with a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to four months in prison followed by a year of supervised release and was fined $2,000. The doctor’s appeal was denied.

Employees Indicted By Federal Grand Jury

Five former employees of a hospital, including a recently licensed registered nurse, were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly selling medical information about car accident victims to personal injury attorneys and chiropractors. This case is still pending. The purchaser of the information faces up to seventy years in prison and a fine of $1.75 million plus supervised release. Employees of the hospital who sold information each face a maximum penalty of one year in prison, a fine of $50,000 and one year of supervised release.

These stories certainly make it clear that, the despite the complexities of HIPAA, the stakes are high!

©2023 Elizabeth E. Hogue, Esq. All rights reserved.

(877) 871-4062

Used with Permission

No portion of this material may be reproduced in any form without the advance written permission of the author.

Stephen Tweed
Stephen Tweed is among the top Thought Leaders in Home Care today. As an industry researcher, author, and executive coach, he has worked with owners and CEOs of companies in the top 5% of Home Care and is a frequent speaker at Home Care association conferences and corporate meetings across the US and Canada.

Related Posts

Learning from Your Company History

March 27, 2025
Earlier this week, I put up a post in my LinkedIn Group about the power of having a five-year vision. One of the lessons we have learned from our Home Care CEO Forum Mastermind Groups is that Home Care leaders in the top tier of our industry are visionary thinkers, and they have a huge vision for their companies.I…

Where Passion Meets Talent

March 20, 2025
I've been thinking about Where Passion Meets Talent.I was in Kutztown Pennsylvania this past week attending the opening of an art show for my granddaughter, Ainsley Tweed. She is graduating from Kutztown University of PA with a degree in art, and this was the grand opening of her senior art show.Ainsley loves cats. And her art talent…

Building a High Performance Home Care Team

March 6, 2025
I've been thinking about The Characteristics of a High Performance Team.I was in a conversation with a professional colleague this week, and we were talking about building high performance teams. She talked about the metaphor between sports teams and health care teams, and asked the question ..."Does the sports team truly capture the complexity of…