conuly

https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/pw83vo/aita_for_reporting_my_girlfriends_hipaa_violation/

A bajillionty variations on

"She told you because she thought she could trust you!"

Yeah, well, the patients there thought they could trust the staff. Guess they were both wrong, huh?

"You put her job at risk and she may even face legal charges!"

Nope, she did that all by herself.

"Don't you know there's a huge fine for these things?"

Yeah, that's because you're not supposed to do it. The threat of a $50k fine is supposed to make you think twice before revealing patient information for the lulz.

"You ruined your relationship! She doesn't want to be in a relationship with a snitch!"

I would hope he has enough pride not to want to be in a relationship with somebody who has proven herself untrustworthy and unethical like this, so no great loss there.

God, I hope none of these people work with sensitive materials.

(I do agree with the variations on "You should have told her to stop" but then they end with "After all, it's just one time, why report her?" which - is it just one time? None of us, including the OP, actually knows that for sure.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

marahmarie

Yeah I mean, that's kinda where I'm at. Report her for it? Lose the relationship, collect $50k, and ??? Profit, clearly. I'd say there was more wrong with the relationship than a HIPAA violation to "inspire" him to act the way he did, just my hot take.

"I would just ask that you not tell me about such things again, there's a HIPAA law on that you know. I understand you thought I'd be happy to hear Tom wound up like this, but..." should more than suffice to shut the whole thing down, at least for the moment. Any resistance on that point or a second violation and you take yourself out of the situation, not her out of her job to possibly collect bounty money on whatever it is she said.

(Some of this is coming from my thoughts on it that "they're humans" - at least she is, so do what humans do, including trust each other even when they know they're technically wrong to share some tidbit that might be crossing the line. Sometimes such sharing makes the receiver so uncomfortable as to want to scream or run, and those are perfectly valid and acceptable reactions, and are exactly what one can do before turning Gestapo on the other a) to lord it over them like they're the better person - does he know he is, for sure? Has he been in every possible situation where he'd have any temptation to act even a bit unethically and somehow avoided doing so? Has anybody? - and b) possibly for sheer profit, at the risk, either way, of her losing her job.)

(There's also a theory that punishing someone does not engender better future behavior while simply encouraging someone to behave better does. So encouraging her not to screw up again is generally, without knowing her particular personality, possibly the better way to go on this. He just went right to punishment, without even warning her first. He's young at 24 so might not do the same in similar circumstances 10 years from now but he's not going to change for the moment, so if that was me I'd run for the hills. As he should've done if her oversharing really bothered him that much.)

Edited (typos, clarity) Date: 2021-09-30 01:55 am (UTC)

From:

conuly

Wait, they give that fine to the person who reports the crime? Is THAT where the money goes? Because that's multiple flavors of screwed up.

From:

marahmarie

My mistake. It seems she would have to pay it, going by this: https://www.hipaajournal.com/civil-penalty-for-knowingly-violating-hipaa/

(I don't know which would be worse, him collecting a bounty/the gov encouraging people to turn Gestapo for headhunting money or having to pay it herself. A fine like that can ruin most ordinary people.)

From:

conuly

Most ordinary people, when they know that something comes with a $50k fine, don't do it.

From:

marahmarie

It really shouldn't take a $50,000 fine to encourage ethical behavior in any situation, be it personal or professional. That's just icing. So no, I don't disagree she exercised poor judgment.

OTOH, hopefully her exercise in poor judgment leads her to kick him straight to the curb. Definitely she needs to throw out the whole entire man. I couldn't live with someone like that as my SO - more to the point, I wouldn't want to.

(I mean, okay...I'm just gonna say it. It's a short line from that to "Well, the government says if you're even 25% Jewish then you're Jewish, period. There's a new law on that you know, and a huge fine for you to pay, so since you've told me you're Jewish now I have to turn you in". I don't want this for even a hypothetical SO, thank you, carry him out to the trash, please.)

From:

conuly

That's not a short line. That comparison is offensive. "Don't breach medical ethics" is not even remotely in the same class as "don't be Jewish".

From:

marahmarie

I'm not saying they're equivalent - and unless you have Jewish ancestry I'm pretty sure you're not the one who gets to be offended. I'm saying someone who does the one is more likely to do the other because he goes too far to begin with, doesn't even tell her beforehand how he's about to do her (very bad) and has zero loyalty to keep him from going even further on his ethical one-upping in the future, is what I'm saying.

Not to mention who wants to live with a taskmaster who's always trying to show you up for something, which it sounds like he might relish to me. It seems you see it as a straight right or wrong answer and as a hypothetical question that's fine but these are flesh and blood human beings so I see it as right, wrong, and what's the most human thing to do, given the givens. He's not treating her as though she's human so might have simple lapses in judgment, he's going straight for her heart, pocketbook, and job.

From:

conuly

What sort of person has this sort of lapse in judgment? What sort of person sees that another person known to her has an illness, and thinks "Oh, wow, now I can make fun of him behind his back!"

From:

marahmarie

Someone who thought her boyfriend would relish the fact that his enemy happens to have a problem with the very body part he used to pee on his locker with?

I'm not saying what she did was right. Read and re-read every word of my comments, you will not find those words within any of them.

All I'm saying is if it's a first time issue for her with him she should be assumed to have shown a lapse in judgement so should be treated accordingly - and that if she resists being told to make a course correction or does the same thing again in the future then he should take his spotless, pristine ethics and leave.

Edited (typo) Date: 2021-10-01 06:16 am (UTC)

From:

conuly

Someone who thought her boyfriend would relish the fact that his enemy happens to have a problem with the very body part he used to pee on his locker with?

You wouldn't say his enemy suffered from a few childish lapses in judgment? That should be brushed over on the grounds that he's probably outgrown them, just like you're assuming that somebody who will breach medical ethics once for a petty reason probably hasn't already done it many times?

From:

marahmarie

Oh yeah, definitely! I do. Let's put it a bit more unkindly: maybe she was an asshole to think her boyfriend might just get a huuuuge kick out of this.

That's probably as deep as her thinking went on it, though. In her excitement at bringing him a tidbit of news she thought might please him she probably didn't think about or else forgot the HIPAA part, or maybe she figured she could trust the info would go no further than the two of them so to her that felt like a safe risk. All bad/stupid things to think.

I'm totally not defending her a bit. I'm mostly saying she needs a better boyfriend, and maybe she herself needs to grow the fuck up.