How can Dr.'s offices obey HIPAA regulations when they ask you at the desk to state your reason for being seen

Question

Does anyone not realize you are standing in a crowded waiting room and may not want to announce your illness or condition out loud?

does anyone else feel "pressured" to answer immediately by the people standing in line behind you and the glaring nurse at the desk?

Answer 1

thats a good question- I havent come across an office doing that anymore... maybe a discreet comment to the doctor after you have been seen might get this situation under control. I wouldnt want anyone to hear what I was there for--- they should have everyone fill it out on a slip of paper or something.

Answer 2

As a physician, I appreciate privacy to a point, but with a normal work load of perhaps 30 or more patients a day, we use nurses or other staff to screen patients and they must be fairly certain that the problem needs a doctor's attention or perhaps could be handled by a physician's assistant or a nurse. We have reached an age of sexual awareness and being very open and while treating STDs...most patients smog their disease with phrases like I have a rash, or I have a urinary infection....the astute health worker usually catches the drift of their reply. Being somewhat old fashion, I am astounded by the candidness of many patients and while I appreciate their frankness, I recall that 15 years ago, patients would have died of embarrassment rather than reveal a sexual problem in the privacy of my office. Such honesty improves health care. Other health problems hardly deserve discussing as having a spastic bowel, an ear infection or even hemorrhoids is no shame to the sufferer, as the people in that same waiting room have something wrong too. I suggest you should be more open-minded to the system and allow your physician latitude with the check-in process.

Answer 3

If you don't want people in the room to know what you are being treated for, you have the option or writing it down; you are not obligated to state the reason out loud...it is your choice.