64 Medical Professionals Who Knowingly Or Accidentally Violated HIPAA

I once saw a specialist at a major hospital in my state's largest city. I had just pulled onto the interstate home when I took a call (hands-free) from one of my best friends. He said “So, is your Social Security Number XXX-XX-XXXX?” He got it perfectly right. “Because,” he said, “I’m at (that doctor’s office) in the waiting room and your whole paper chart is just, like, open on the check in counter, no staff are around right now. Hey I didn’t know you’re allergic to (thing I’m highly allergic to)!”

I had words with that office, and immediately had myself discharged from care and went elsewhere.

I had an ex who got fired on their first day for verbally giving someone their (positive) HIV results in the middle of a crowded waiting room.

A job(sales and not at all medical related) I used to work at was constantly getting faxes from a local doctor's office meant for a hospital. The contents were orders for procedures and included detailed medical histories. We called the doctor's office multiple times to inform them that they were leaking private info but it kept happening for months. Then I started calling the patients instead. Someone must have raised a stink because we soon stopped getting them.

Happened to me. I was getting a physical for life insurance. The person doing the physical was someone I knew from work (this person did insurance physicals as a second job). I had to tell her that I was newly pregnant for the paperwork. I told her not to say anything because I was still early in the 1st trimester and wasn't ready to tell anyone outside immediate family. I'm at work a few days later, and someone congratulates me on my pregnancy. I'm like, "what the hell, how do you know!?" I knew how she knew. I reported her to the insurance agency.

I worked with someone who hated a particular doctor we worked with. That doctor had to have surgery and this coworker went into the surgery department’s schedule to see what she was having done and then approached me and another coworker and started running her mouth about what she was having done and making fun of her. The whole time I’m just sitting there thinking ‘shut up you idiot, I will literally have to report this’. But she just went on and on. I reported the incident and she was fired. I would be horrified to have someone do that to me and it was such a gross thing to do.

A guy at the hospital I used to work at looked up a patient's information to get her number and proceeded to message her because he thought she was attractive. She filed a complaint (and rightfully so) and posted it on Facebook. Last I heard, he still worked there but just had to change departments.

Not a healthcare worker but a patient. Found out a couple months after my daughter’s death that a nurse had made a tiktok comment about one of the triplets dying in the NICU…as my triplets were the only ones there, it was a pretty big violation, plus the actual video mentioned another baby’s death. The nurse was fired. I’m glad the hospital took it seriously-we wouldn’t have even known about it if the hospital hadn’t told us. Luckily another nurse saw it and reported the violation to the manager.

I work at a nationally known hospital. It never fails that everytime a celebrity comes in, someone gets fired for looking at their chart.

Former colleague 1 took a rear view photo of a patient outside the clinic and posted it on FACEBOOK with the caption “I can’t help it, I like what I like”, implying the patient had a nice a*s. Former colleague 2 commented “Is that [patient’s initials]?” to which former colleague 1 replied yes.

They were both fired immediately.

Part of my work involved going out and doing assessments of HIPAA protocols at provider offices. The receptionist had left to let them know I was here. I was in the lobby waiting and noticed someone come in and drop off a stack of Manila folders on the counter and leave.

When I went back and started the review, the first thing I asked was: “Did I see what I think I just saw?”

Office Manager dropping his head and nodded: “Yes, our other office sent some patient charts over.”

Not only had they been left there on the counter but hadn’t been secured and locked as was policy when transporting them.

Me: “You know that’s going into my report?”

Office Manager: “I understand.”

I had a coworker teach me one trick when walking through a facility. Just jiggle the mouse to see if they logged out of the EHR.

I had to fire an employee for a HIPAA violation. She looked up lab results on a friend who was admitted to the hospital. She was caught, counseled, and put on probation (per hospital policy). She was caught less than 6 months later doing the same thing; looking up results out of concern for a friend. She was then fired.

My partner came out of a well-check at a new GP’s office CRYING because the doctor had neglected to properly ID him… when she walked in and immediately started talking to him about HIV medication. He didn’t, and does not currently have HIV, but little did she know, he had a dirty needle stick like 8 years earlier while working as a medic at a hospital, and just always had it on the back of his mind, even after being cleared. When he started freaking out at this (idiot) doctor she apparently waved him off saying “oh sorry, wrong chart” but he was already panicking and demanding to see his test results… so instead of NOT violating HIPAA and showing him HIS results, she turned the screen so he could see the name on the chart that wasn’t his. He was telling me all this through sobs in the parking lot after getting up and leaving the office, and I had half a mind to march in there myself and give her a “lecture”… but I opted for reporting her to the medical board, her employer, the ombudsman, and we switched him immediately to a different provider.

I asked for my medical records from a therapist I saw once because I needed them to from apply for life insurance. The office sent me someone else’s therapy record, notes and all. I made a huge stink.

When my MIL was in the hospital, on a ventilator with Covid, a nurse at that hospital who happened to be buddies with my MIL’s boss told the boss that she probably wasn’t going to make it. Boss filled her position. She was on that vent for a month and in physical rehab for another month, but she pulled through! Boss was a nice guy and scrambled to make sure MIL still had a job to come back to but g*****n.

The military pharmacy gave me someone else’s meds just before closing time. I didn’t realize until I got home. We were both prescribed the same set of meds, but our names are very different.

You bet your a*s I went right back there in the am to get mine, return the others so that patient could get theirs (and not be told they already picked them up) and the next time I came in, they had a whole new system that actually had the patient verify their birthdate for the system when logging out meds.

I was being treated for a muscle spasm so I know me and the other patient had a very uncomfortable night.

Not a doctor but… I was talking with a dentist I met in tinder and she sent me a photo of a patient of hers who was a homeless man with rotting teeth. Feel like that says a lot about her character.

Purchased a used copier, previously owned by a medical clinic. They didn’t clear the copier memory before delivery and it had hundreds of patient file forms stored on it, including sensitive demographic data and SSNs.

We do inpatient hospice on our oncology floor. Night nurse called the family of a different patient to let them know the patient died and details about what was next. 


Needless to say, the daughter of the patient who was still very much alive was super pissed.

Not a healthcare worker, but my mom is and she used to work at the local hospital. When my older brother was hospitalized because he was actively dying from an STD eating his brain one of her co-workers went around telling everyone they worked with.

And, yes, my mom did file a complaint.

In HR related work, the amount of doctors offices that have faxed over people’s entire medical chart instead of the one document we need like FMLA paperwork is insane.

We also got sent a completely random person’s medical chart that did not work for us and spent a good 10 minutes searching for this name in our system to find out this is a complete stranger’s medical chart.