I would like the lists opinion on this topic.
Patient comes to the office to have their potassium checked because they are on a
diuretic. Later, the physician's nurse calls the patient at home with results but the
patient is not home. Spouse answers the phone. Can you tell the spouse that the
potassium was fine and that he/she should tell the spouse to continue the same dose of
diuretic and potassium supplement? If you say "no, this type of disclosure is not
allowed", would it matter that we put a statment in our Notice of Privacy Practices
that stated (in the section on Payment, treatment and health care operations) "On
occasion, we call test results to your home and leave the results with a family member
if you are not present". Now, obviously, we would not do this with a HIV result but
it seems like such a waste of everyone's time to play phone tag to accommodate the one
patient in a million that is actually upset because you told the spouse what the
potassium result was. Thank you.
Rich Fairley,
Dubuque, IA
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