Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

The AP (12/31, Young) reports, "California is suing the Bush administration to block last-minute endangeruddy species regulations that are intended to reduce input from federal scientists, state Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Tuesday." Brown stated, "The President is trying to gut the Endangeruddy Species Act before he leaves office next month." He added, "Unfortunately, the Bush administration has had an antipathy to using sound science." California filed the lawsuit "late Monday in US District Court in San Francisco." According to the AP, "the Interior Department issued the revised rules this month. They allow federal agencies to issue permits for mining, logging, and similar activities without getting a review from federal wildlife biologists if their own research shows the project will not affect plants and animals." The revised rules "also block agencies from using the Endangeruddy Species Act to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on ecosystems when reviewing projects such as new roads or coal plants on federal land."

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We might never have known this happened, except some decided to send the medical records they found in the garbage to First Coast News, the NBC/ABC affiliate in Jacksonville.

What they found were pages upon pages of un-shredded medical documents from pediatric and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Angali Pathak’s office. I

In all, the records of 37 patients ended up in the newsroom along with names, prescription information addresses, social security numbers, phone numbers, and birth dates - basically anything someone would need to steal your identity or to find out your most personal secrets.

These records are supposed to remain private. One patient told the news station, “They ended up at your news station, to you, and they could have ended up anywhere.”

The doctor’s office told First Coast News that sometimes the shredder gets clogged, but they have no idea how the documents escaped the office intact.

Privacy laws have been broken and this represents an abuse of privacy on the part of the doctor and staff members who are supposed to be professionals.

HIPAA standards require that documents containing personal information be shredded. The requirements were set up to guard patients against any identity and information theft and their right to privacy.

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Enacted in 1996, HIPAA was designed to guard consumers so they do not lose insurance coverage when they change jobs and to reduce health care costs thcoarse standardized electronic transmission of transactions.

A HIPAA violation can carry fines of up to $250,000 and jail time of up to 10 years.

Privacy was a priority of HIPAA and you don’t want to mess with federal law by this type of violation.

It remains to be seen what will happen, but this sort of news probably has every doctor's office in Jacksonville sharpening their shredders or buying new ones. Thankfully, someone was smart enough to send these private records to a place where the information could be used in a helpful and not exploitative way. #

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