Practicing privacy: Fine-tune office routines without going overboard

From talking in the hallways to having patients sign in: How to handle the mundane tasks in your office now that HIPAA has added a new wrinkle.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. July 14, 2003.

"Jane Smith, we're ready to do your mammogram," the nurse announces to everyone in the waiting room.

Before April 14, that announcement would have been indiscreet and might have been discomfiting for the patient.

But after April 14, with HIPAA privacy rules in effect, could that kind of public announcement have the feds storming into your office?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is so long and legalistic that many physicians still are confused about how to conduct their daily office lives without fear that some HIPAA cop will show up if doctors and nurses share information about patients or if patient files are located anywhere but a locked dungeon. Here's how experts say you can fine-tune your office routine without going overboard.

Can I still have someone call out patients' names in the waiting room?

Sure, but discreetly. "You can be courteous, polite and call people by name. Just don't go into particulars," says John R. Christiansen, a health care attorney at Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, Seattle.

It also is OK to call out a patient's full name, even if you treat specialized populations such as people with sexually transmitted diseases. But it would be better to call those patients just by their first or last names rather than full names, says John C. Parmigiani, national director for regulatory and compliance services practice at CTG HealthCare Solutions, Cincinnati.

To be safe, some practices appear to be taking their cues from the deli counter. Christiansen has heard that some practices are handing out flashing pager devices, the kind that popular restaurants use to let diners know when a table becomes available. "That seems real overkill and pretty unaffordable to most physician offices," Christiansen says.