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Doctor accused of illegally obtaining health data of Texas Children's patients, in crusade against Transgender medical treatments (www.houstonchronicle.com)

submitted 4 months ago by UnderpantsWeevil to c/news

45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The doctor has publicly identified himself as the person who released information to a conservative activist about the transgender care program at Texas Children's. Citing "whistleblower documents," the activist published a story in May 2023 saying Texas Children's provided transgender care, which was legal at the time, "in secret."

Texas Children's on Monday declined to comment on the charges against Haim. In previous statements, hospital officials said its doctors have always provided care within the law.

Transgender care has become a popular talking point in Texas and other Republican-dominated states where lawmakers claim such treatment is harmful to children. It describes a range of different social, psychological, behavioral or medical interventions that support people whose assigned sex at birth does not align with their gender identity. This can include mental health counseling, hormone therapy or surgery, which is rare for people under 18.

Such treatment, which is supported by every major medical association in the U.S., was offered at Texas Children's and other pediatric hospitals in Texas. Lawmakers have since implemented a statewide ban, and Texas Children's said it would discontinue its program.

Meanwhile, Haim has publicly decried the investigation against him as "political."

In the arraignment hearing, Ho said the indictment identified three different patients whose health information was compromised. Addressing reporters, Patrick declined to speak about the facts of the case but described the charges against his client as a "huge contradiction."

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[–] [email protected] 121 points 4 months ago (16 children)

This is a textbook HIPAA violation.

[–] secretlyaddictedtolinux 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (8 children)

The following post my be completely wrong based on new updates to HIPAA and previous suggestions that were not added as expected to revisions. There is one reply below this saying it's wrong, and they are probably right. This whole post is probably mostly wrong, therefore. I'm leaving it here for now, but it's incorrect.

It's not a textbook HIPAA violation.

HIPAA has a good-faith exception allowing medical professionals to disclose private medical information when it's in the best interest of the patient.

What is in the best interest of the patient?

Well, following all the rules of the government, which are all there for people's safety, of course!

For example, Norma gets pregnant and abortion is legal and she has an abortion. She is relying on HIPAA to keep her medical privacy.

Abortion then becomes illegal after she had her abortion. A hospital worker, knowing that abortion is illegal, provides this information to the police so that they can monitor Norma to make sure she doesn't get more abortions. This would be a good-faith exception to HIPAA because the medical worker is breaching Norma's privacy in Norma's best interest because he is worried she could break the law by having more abortions, and following the law is always in the interest of safety, no matter what. (Have doubts? Just ask ChatGPT if it's ever safer to not follow public rules and regulations because of having a different personal belief system.) Norma then sues the medical worker and claims the good-faith exception violated HIPAA, and a court then is left to decide whether this worker was acting in Norma's best interests, by helping make sure she follows the law, or doing something bad. If the court finds against the worker, it's at best a slap on the wrist and small fine, but if the hospital worker is in a conservative court, the worker is going to win anyway.

Worst of all, as a patient, Norma can not opt-out of the good-faith exception. There is no mechanism in the HIPAA rules that allows her to say "You know that good faith exception? I am explicitly requiring you to close that loop-hole for me because I'm a private person, my family and I have different values, and it's just easier for me this way. I don't want to have to worry about you deciding something that would make me uncomfortable. If I want you to talk to someone, I'll give explicit consent beforehand and even emergencies or unusual exceptions don't change this." There is no way to opt-out of this awful ambiguous rule. In the medical industry, you either accept their rules and regulations or you walk away and don't get medical care.

So sadly, you're actually totally wrong. I hope this doctor who breached patient privacy claims HIPAA wasn't violated in just this way so that legislators realize how much they fucked up and so that patients no longer have to hope and pray their doctor doesn't decide to break privacy in a patient's supposed best interest. There are so many exceptions and rules change so much that it's no wonder that women will no longer talk with doctor's about periods, and women are even afraid to tell therapists about having been raped in certain states.

It's honestly better for patients, especially women, to start seeing the medical establishment for what it is: a highly regulated arm of the government who does exactly what it's told in order to keep getting high salaries and wages. Don't adhere to the government rules? Goodbye high salaries! They don't dare bite the hands that feeds, and women are luckily wising up to it.

If this doctor gets convicted, it will be because of the false pretenses he allegedly used. He is also only being charged by the federal government which is more liberal and if it were up to the state government of Texas this person never would have been charged. The situation is far more dire that this feel-good idea that there's real enforcement over this sort of thing when the reality is there explicit loopholes written into the laws to allow it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (6 children)

You seem very confident in your answer, but the actual text doesn’t seem to match your assertions?

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/breach-notification/index.html

There are three exceptions to the definition of “breach.” The first exception applies to the unintentional acquisition, access, or use of protected health information by a workforce member or person acting under the authority of a covered entity or business associate, if such acquisition, access, or use was made in good faith and within the scope of authority. The second exception applies to the inadvertent disclosure of protected health information by a person authorized to access protected health information at a covered entity or business associate to another person authorized to access protected health information at the covered entity or business associate, or organized health care arrangement in which the covered entity participates. In both cases, the information cannot be further used or disclosed in a manner not permitted by the Privacy Rule. The final exception applies if the covered entity or business associate has a good faith belief that the unauthorized person to whom the impermissible disclosure was made, would not have been able to retain the information.