When gun owners apply for concealed carry permits in Mecklenburg County, sheriff’s office background checks have sometimes turned up sensitive health information, including whether a person has had an abortion or has a sexually transmitted disease… The sheriff’s office, through a spokesperson, said the agency has no control over what information health providers choose to send. In a statement, MCSO said the records sent are dependent on the provider’s discretion. [More]
They can’t specify the information they want? And the providers don’t have policies and procedures in place approved by their risk managment departments to only provide what is required by law?
And why the hell is this required by law anyway?
[Via Jess]
I suspect it’s not that the medicos don’t have rules in place, they’re violating them, probably due to ignorance (with perhaps more than a touch of DEI). This is all probably covered under HIPAA.
This is a HIPAA violation and under federal law the victims of this indiscretion can sue for damages….and should.
If you come into contact with someone’s health information, HIPAA requires you to take steps to safeguard that information. As a TPC manager, I was required to maintain a separate locked cabinet to store any such information and company policy discouraged us from collecting it in the first place. If an employee called in sick, I was to mark their attendance record “Ill” and nothing more.
This is the ONLY information that healthcare providers are supposed to send:
§ 14-415.13
“that authorizes and requires disclosure to the sheriff of any records concerning the mental health or capacity of the applicant to be used for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant is disqualified for a permit under the provisions of G.S. 14-415.12″
ANYTHING in excess of that is a serious HIPAA violation. Civil fines in the thousands of dollars per release and criminal charges (felonies!) are in order.