HIPAA? What do you mean HIPAA?

Now that mom has passed, my doctor is finally willing to discuss the idea of me having a hysterectomy. To say I'm thrilled is to understate the situation by quite a lot. I just feel like that whole shooting match is a ticking timebomb of uselessness, so the thought of having it yanked is delightful.

Step one in the process is a sonogram. So okay, no big, with all that we went through back when we were trying to have kids, this is old hat. I went ahead and did that along with my mammo (because it's fun to be over 40!) on Wednesday.

Thursday, the doctor called saying the sono was clear and that next steps would be forthcoming.

Then Thursday night, my mother-in-law called to ask me if I was okay since I'd had a sonogram.

What now?

Yes, turns out before the doctor called ME, she called up my sister-in-law who shares my very common first name and, since she is not married and I took hubby's name when we married, the same last name.

We do not share a birthdate though. So really, it would have been a simple thing to check before dialing.

We also do not share middle initials.

Or addresses.

Or social security numbers.

All things that would be on the sono results and verifiable with the record in question PRIOR to picking up the phone.

What kills me the most, is that for the last five or six years, every time I've called to make an appointment it has gone something like this:

"Hi, my name is Beth Sleepy, I would like to schedule an exam."

"Are you still at *my in-law's address*?"

"No. That's my sister-in-law, why don't you check DOB? It's blah blah."

And then they're in the right record. I inevitably have to straighten them out when I check in as well. I just...I've started telling them my DOB after I say my name to try and fix this.

It is not fixed.

But hey. I guess HIPAA violations aren't as bad when they're all in the family?