Jaye - I really feel for you and your situation! 

I'm wondering if you got a release from the mom to communicate with her
health care providers - if so, no additional release would be necessary to
communicate with them, especially as this is still within the scope of HIPAA
that allows for "Treatment, Payment or Health Care Operations: 

"A covered entity also may disclose protected health information for the
treatment activities of any health care provider, the payment activities of
another covered entity and of any health care provider, or the health care
operations of another covered entity involving either quality or competency
assurance activities or fraud and abuse detection and compliance activities,
if both covered entities have or had a relationship with the individual and
the protected health information pertains to the relationship." Downloaded
from: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf

Your communication would fall under "treatment" and under "health care
operations"  

One point I would surely agree with is the WAY that you offer the
information / education could either open doors for you or close them
tightly!  

I've been known to call an OB office and ask to speak to him/her nurse (in
this case the nurse was the person who had provided incorrect/incomplete
information) and I just said, incredulously, "I'm just wanting to check with
you, as a patient told me you had said ----, but I'm sure you didn't and I
wanted to clarify what you DID say for my records."  She of course
"blubbered" something about "Oh my, did she?"  ... and I could continue on
with the correct information ("of course you know that mastitis is in the
tissue and mothers CAN breastfeed without exposing their babies to the
infection...")

We continued on, and I gave her another "out" (well, you know newly
delivered moms have problems, as their brain goes out with the placenta...
<grin>) and then offered to give her resources for handouts on the topic she
could give moms so that they would be clear on the information shared.

I also offered a training, but that wasn't accepted... ;-(

However, I haven't had another mom report this information...and still get
referrals from that office!

Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC
California, USA

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]