As a practicing Obstetrician, I posted photographs of all “my babies”. These were part of my Hall of Fame. Each one had a caption written by a mother with a thank you compliment. Patients loved seeing them. I loved seeing them. Whenever I was down or a bit blue, I would read those captions and look at those photos with a smile. It made all the time, blood, sweat and tears worthwhile and worth doing.
But the government wants to take that from you and me!
HIPAA
Privacy laws were devised to protect us all from a myriad of problems and social ills. But have they sometimes gone too far?
As ludicrous as this sounds, tacking these photographs up on the wall of the exam room where others can view them and smile, is now a violation of the HIPAA. Any information that identifies individuals can no longer be accessed by others ventolin online without prescription without being deemed a breach of privacy.
It is understandable that you want to guard numbers with your life- social security number, telephone and fax numbers and other identifying factors that allow intrusion into a person’s life (or worse yet, identification theft)
But …pictures? These are not photos that I shot surreptitiously. These are pictures that patients shared with the office. They GAVE them to me.
Doesn’t that imply consent to share the photographs or must they be relegated to some dusty album? Must they now be scanned onto a disk or flash drive and the incriminating evidence be shredded?
Perhaps it is legal to have the photos of babies without the names on the front while restricting the identification to the back of the photo.
Yes, these photos were a great public relations practice.
But it also made everyone smile!
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