Large Provider Revises Patient Contact Process to Reflect Requests for Confidential Communications
Covered Entity: General Hospital
Issue: Impermissible Disclosure; Confidential Communications

A patient alleged that a general hospital disclosed protected health information when a hospital staff person left a message on the patient’s home phone answering machine, thereby failing to accommodate the patient’s request that communications of PHI be made only through her mobile or work phones.  In response, the hospital instituted a number of actions to achieve compliance with the Privacy Rule.  To resolve this matter to the satisfaction of OCR, the hospital: retrained an entire Department with regard to the requirements of the Privacy Rule; provided additional specific training to staff members whose job duties included leaving messages for patients; and, revised the Department’s patient privacy policy to clarify patient rights to accommodation of reasonable requests to receive communications of PHI by alternative means or at alternative locations.