Las Vegas Hospital makes sure their billing stats are right on JohnDoe's, doesnt name them JohnDoe, so if you call asking if there are any JohnDoe's there...they answer nope

[AUS-97HORN 11824]

If the article is as presented its either complete indifference of the hospital or a complete breakdown of their unknown person identifical protocol - especially regarding training of the folks who answer the phones and are asked are there any John Doe's in the hospital?

Because everyone in the US knows that if they call in looking for a missing person who may have been marked as an unknown person, the name they look under is John Doe

 

However, everytime this woman called asking if there were any JohnDoe the hospital staff kept telling her, nope, no JD's

 

ahhh but see, this hospital wants to make sure its billing stats are right so if they happen to get TWO JD's at the same time (rather than just calling them JD1 and JD2), this hospital needs to know which of the two got charged what....

so they RENAME THE PATIENT, and give them a new name, in this case Nolan Doe     

WTF?

OK, so you want to get your billing right... if you are gonna give the unknown person a fking name for billing purposes, you better damn well make sure every. single. worker. in the hospital knows that a JD could be something else and to just look for the last name to see if there might be an unknown with a unique first name and last name Doe.

 

so the story is, the sister of a then unknown person spent weeks trying to find her missing brother.  continuously asking hospitals and morgues for John Doe's. 

turns out her brother was brought in and lay in a coma for 10 days, eventually died as an unknown with the name Nolan Doe, and since he wasnt listed as JD, the sister was told Nope, no JD's here.

it was 2 weeks after his death that the coroner was able to identify him.

 

Hospital though, they double down on the idiotic policy.

Quote

While we can’t specifically comment on this case due to HIPAA, I can share our general policy. Per our policy, MountainView does not provide random callers information on unidentified patients because of HIPAA.

Per our policy, the hospital identifies anonymous patients with the last name of “Doe,” however assigns different first names to prevent the merging of medical records.

We work diligently behind the scenes to identify unnamed patients with our community partners. We work with our partners in the community to identify people who come in and when it is possible, connect patients to family.

 

UH... ok, I get it, you dont want random people calling getting their jollies at looking at unknown people...

but if a concerned family member calls and says they have a missing fucking white man who is 60 years old, and you just happen to have an unknown 50-80 year old white man at your hospital, maybe, just fucking maybe, you ask the family to send a pic of the missing to have someone go up to the missing persons room and do a visual check to see if they might be a match.    Maybe even ask if they have an identifying feature? like a tattoo, scar, or something else thats kinda unique on their body.

 

but no, we are protecting unknown patients by renaming them with a non-nonsensical name that isnt used by law enforcement or other healthcare places.... basically making it pretty fucking hard to identify your unknown person.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

You think that's bad, wait until you read about their lost and found policy. Kiss that missing wallet goodbye.

[ztejas 43541]

/r/titlegore

[texasdago 7580]

Still processing the headline.

  

[Billy Pilgrim 1984]

Hospitals these days rarely name unknowns “John Doe”. They usually have them listed as some variation of NATO phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, delta, echo, etc).

[Foosters 17889]

you look at the las vegas hospital and its just all about not naming their does but sometimes naming does other does names so that when you call for does they say which doe do you want what kind of place do you think we are a zoo for deers or something

[Brisketexan 105382]

It's all fun and games until this guy calls and asks if the hospital has any unconscious female patients with no known identity:

[Kel Varnsen 8541]

52 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

You think that's bad, wait until you read about their lost and found policy. Kiss that missing wallet goodbye.

[Dahobbs 17685]

1 hour ago, AUS-97HORN said:

If the article is as presented its either complete indifference of the hospital or a complete breakdown of their unknown person identifical protocol - especially regarding training of the folks who answer the phones and are asked are there any John Doe's in the hospital?

Because everyone in the US knows that if they call in looking for a missing person who may have been marked as an unknown person, the name they look under is John Doe

 

However, everytime this woman called asking if there were any JohnDoe the hospital staff kept telling her, nope, no JD's

 

ahhh but see, this hospital wants to make sure its billing stats are right so if they happen to get TWO JD's at the same time (rather than just calling them JD1 and JD2), this hospital needs to know which of the two got charged what....

so they RENAME THE PATIENT, and give them a new name, in this case Nolan Doe     

WTF?

OK, so you want to get your billing right... if you are gonna give the unknown person a fking name for billing purposes, you better damn well make sure every. single. worker. in the hospital knows that a JD could be something else and to just look for the last name to see if there might be an unknown with a unique first name and last name Doe.

 

so the story is, the sister of a then unknown person spent weeks trying to find her missing brother.  continuously asking hospitals and morgues for John Doe's. 

turns out her brother was brought in and lay in a coma for 10 days, eventually died as an unknown with the name Nolan Doe, and since he wasnt listed as JD, the sister was told Nope, no JD's here.

it was 2 weeks after his death that the coroner was able to identify him.

 

Hospital though, they double down on the idiotic policy.

 

UH... ok, I get it, you dont want random people calling getting their jollies at looking at unknown people...

but if a concerned family member calls and says they have a missing fucking white man who is 60 years old, and you just happen to have an unknown 50-80 year old white man at your hospital, maybe, just fucking maybe, you ask the family to send a pic of the missing to have someone go up to the missing persons room and do a visual check to see if they might be a match.    Maybe even ask if they have an identifying feature? like a tattoo, scar, or something else thats kinda unique on their body.

 

but no, we are protecting unknown patients by renaming them with a non-nonsensical name that isnt used by law enforcement or other healthcare places.... basically making it pretty fucking hard to identify your unknown person.

I don't really understand your concern here. Hospitals don't have an obligation to help random members of the public figure out if unknown individuals are in the hospital. And, it does seem like privacy law is a pretty valid reason not to give out information to random callers. It is unfortunate about what happened to her brother. But I don't see this a failure of hospital policy. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8947]

2 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

However, everytime this woman called asking if there were any JohnDoe the hospital staff kept telling her, nope, no JD's

 

[Deej 76937]

What happens if your name is John Doe?

 

[Helobious 9465]

Worst thread title in surly history?

[George 493]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I don't really understand your concern here. Hospitals don't have an obligation to help random members of the public figure out if unknown individuals are in the hospital. And, it does seem like privacy law is a pretty valid reason not to give out information to random callers. It is unfortunate about what happened to her brother. But I don't see this a failure of hospital policy. 

Maybe so. Guess it’s too much to ask to be a fucking human being and use some common sense. 

Seems helping an unknown injured/sick/dying patient get identified would be near the top of the priority list…

and don’t give me the slippery slope shit. One out of what? 1000 cases might be nefarious?

[royiv 9363]

3 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

OK, so you want to get your billing right... if you are gonna give the unknown person a fking name for billing purposes, you better damn well make sure every. single. worker. in the hospital knows that a JD could be something else and to just look for the last name to see if there might be an unknown with a unique first name and last name Doe.

Billing isn’t mentioned anywhere in the article. That’s a jump you made. The hospital says it’s about avoiding medical records confusion. That’s a patient safety issue not a billing issue. 

[Dahobbs 17685]

7 minutes ago, George said:

Maybe so. Guess it’s too much to ask to be a fucking human being and use some common sense. 

Seems helping an unknown injured/sick/dying patient get identified would be near the top of the priority list…

and don’t give me the slippery slope shit. One out of what? 1000 cases might be nefarious?

Whether it is likely to be nefarious or not, HIPAA is pretty strict on this. Revealing information about a patient to someone else (absent consent or court order) is a no no.  

[royiv 9363]

6 minutes ago, George said:

Maybe so. Guess it’s too much to ask to be a fucking human being and use some common sense. 

Seems helping an unknown injured/sick/dying patient get identified would be near the top of the priority list…

and don’t give me the slippery slope shit. One out of what? 1000 cases might be nefarious?

HIPAA violations are no joke. The feds don’t take privacy violations lightly. Blame the law, not the hospital administrators.

[Trey3216 15365]

This thread….

[Macanudo 13014]

5 hours ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Hospitals these days rarely name unknowns “John Doe”. They usually have them listed as some variation of NATO phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, delta, echo, etc).

Dibs on Charlie Whiskey as my new name when I go into witness protection.

[956 Worldwide 34785]

This is a hospital fuckup and not at all related to HIPAA and it is bullshit. 
 

The correct response: “Yes, we do have (some, no, one) unidentified and incapacitated patient(s). Can you please send a (photo, identifying information, any other information that might help) and we will coordinate with law enforcement partners if it’s possible that this is a positive ID.
 

It is NOT a violation of HIPAA to work with LE and the public to identify an unknown and incapacitated patient.  Hospital is hiding behind HIPAA and their own shitty system and poor training.

[Dahobbs 17685]

2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It is NOT a violation of HIPAA to work with LE and the public to identify an unknown and incapacitated patient.  Hospital is hiding behind HIPAA and their own shitty system and poor training.

It isn't a HIPAA violation to work with the police (assuming there is a valid order). It is absolutely a HIPAA violation to provide patient information to a random person, even if that random person may be related to the person. 

[956 Worldwide 34785]

Just now, Dahobbs said:

It isn't a HIPAA violation to work with the police (assuming there is a valid order). It is absolutely a HIPAA violation to provide patient information to a random person, even if that random person may be related to the person. 

You’re not providing patient information. You are saying “Yes, we have an unidentified patient somewhere in the hospital.”
 

You are asking the caller to send information to you like a photo, or description and provide their own contact information. And then you’re calling LE to say “we heard from someone who can likely help ID that Nelson Doe you brought in last week, please follow up. Here is the number.” Or “sorry, none of our non-IDd patients match that description.” At no point are you disclosing patient information. 

HIPAA would come into play if you sent the inquirer information and a photo instead of asking for it from them to work with LE. Or if you said “yeah, we have a John Doe who broke his dick, wanna come look and see if he’s your guy.”

I read this article and it honestly seems like the guy was a bit spacey and likely disheveled. Had this been a guy in a nice suit who wandered from a conference or got hit by car, they’d have worked harder to ID him. 

NY state went through this a while back and they even require hospitals to provide John Doe photos to local media if cops and missing persons databases don’t work. They had exactly this case and told a son “we entered your dad with Alzheimer’s as ‘Trauma Doe’ and since you didn’t use our own internal code when inquiring we couldn’t help you.” It was a shithow and resulted in a lot of clarification.
 

https://health.ny.gov/professionals/hospital_administrator/letters/2017/docs/2017-01_id_of_unidentified_patients_model_policy.pdf

 

[TKthunder2 4997]

7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

It isn't a HIPAA violation to work with the police (assuming there is a valid order). It is absolutely a HIPAA violation to provide patient information to a random person, even if that random person may be related to the person. 

Don’t be a douche. Someone calls in asks if they have any John Does and the hospital does says NO when the answer is YES and then they fucked up.

The goal of the hospital, law enforcement, and every government agency WANTS to connect John/Jane Does with their families. The hospital fucked up and is trying to blame HIPAA when all other hospitals have systems in place to facilitate reconnecting lost family members.

You ask them privately and everyone would admit they fucked up, but because there is a possible lawsuit incoming.

[royiv 9363]

38 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Don’t be a douche. Someone calls in asks if they have any John Does and the hospital does says NO when the answer is YES and then they fucked up.

The goal of the hospital, law enforcement, and every government agency WANTS to connect John/Jane Does with their families. The hospital fucked up and is trying to blame HIPAA when all other hospitals have systems in place to facilitate reconnecting lost family members.

You ask them privately and everyone would admit they fucked up, but because there is a possible lawsuit incoming.

I don't think anyone is trying to be a douche here. There are laws that protect patient privacy and, whether or not you agree with them, there are procedures that have to be followed per the law. While it appears that this particular case was tragic, but I don't see how the law was violated. 

[956 Worldwide 34785]

4 minutes ago, royiv said:

I don't think anyone is trying to be a douche here. There are laws that protect patient privacy and, whether or not you agree with them, there are procedures that have to be followed per the law. While it appears that this particular case was tragic, but I don't see how the law was violated. 

No one here is saying they violated the law, we are saying they are hiding behind a law, groundlessly, as an excuse for their fuckup. 
 

And that’s to be expected because the answer of any hospital SPOX when contacted about a real hospital fuck up is going to be:

1. We always carefully follow our policies and standards of care 

2. Our policies and standards are very good

3. HIPAA bitches! I won’t say anymore 

That is literally the script whether they lost a baby or cut the wrong leg off.

 

[Dahobbs 17685]

51 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Don’t be a douche. Someone calls in asks if they have any John Does and the hospital does says NO when the answer is YES and then they fucked up.

The goal of the hospital, law enforcement, and every government agency WANTS to connect John/Jane Does with their families. The hospital fucked up and is trying to blame HIPAA when all other hospitals have systems in place to facilitate reconnecting lost family members.

You ask them privately and everyone would admit they fucked up, but because there is a possible lawsuit incoming.

I don't really see the much lawsuit potential here, unless somehow the lack of identification caused the death. I don't think the hospital has any duty to the family members to provide identification (in fact, if he were a normal patient, they'd have the opposite duty), and even if some duty were breached, what damage flowed from it? 

As I said, this situation is tragic. The hospital probably should have worked harder to identify him. They could have had better internalize mechanisms to recognize when potential information about their john doe was available. But we also don't really know what, if anything, was happening behind in the scenes to work with law enforcement to identify the patient. 

[TKthunder2 4997]

31 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I don't really see the much lawsuit potential here, unless somehow the lack of identification caused the death. I don't think the hospital has any duty to the family members to provide identification (in fact, if he were a normal patient, they'd have the opposite duty), and even if some duty were breached, what damage flowed from it? 

As I said, this situation is tragic. The hospital probably should have worked harder to identify him. They could have had better internalize mechanisms to recognize when potential information about their john doe was available. But we also don't really know what, if anything, was happening behind in the scenes to work with law enforcement to identify the patient. 

I’m not a lawyer, nor have I ever played one on TV, but I’m pretty sure that not knowing who your patient is or MOST importantly their medical history absolutely could have resulted in the patients death or at least some unnecessary pain and suffering. Any two bit attorney could likely make a threatening enough case to get a settlement here.

While the doctors likely did the best they could, if they gave the patient any meds they were allergic to, or that had negative side effects when mixed with other medication they were taking, or they did not treat a known condition of the patient when their family was literally calling into the hospital trying to locate them only to be turned away by an administrator…

If it makes it past a judge and to a jury you know how it will go. Family crying about not being able to see their loved one before death and possibly even robbed from a chance to save their life, while a hospital administrator hides behind HIPAA and the lawyer pokes holes in their bullshit story that they can’t say whether or not they have a John Doe admitted. That’s likely an easy multimillion dollar verdict which is why they’d likely just settle.

[Homercles 10206]

14 hours ago, texasdago said:

Still processing the headline.

  

[Pam Cummings 9677]

Worst thread title ever?

[Dahobbs 17685]

7 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

I’m not a lawyer, nor have I ever played one on TV, but I’m pretty sure that not knowing who your patient is or MOST importantly their medical history absolutely could have resulted in the patients death or at least some unnecessary pain and suffering. Any two bit attorney could likely make a threatening enough case to get a settlement here.

While the doctors likely did the best they could, if they gave the patient any meds they were allergic to, or that had negative side effects when mixed with other medication they were taking, or they did not treat a known condition of the patient when their family was literally calling into the hospital trying to locate them only to be turned away by an administrator…

If it makes it past a judge and to a jury you know how it will go. Family crying about not being able to see their loved one before death and possibly even robbed from a chance to save their life, while a hospital administrator hides behind HIPAA and the lawyer pokes holes in their bullshit story that they can’t say whether or not they have a John Doe admitted. That’s likely an easy multimillion dollar verdict which is why they’d likely just settle.

Nah man, med mal tort reform makes even some good cases impossible to pursue (from damage caps to procedural and evidentiary barriers, not to mention jury hostility). Nothing in the information available suggests the lack of identification caused his death. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8947]

10 hours ago, Macanudo said:

Dibs on Charlie Whiskey as my new name when I go into witness protection.

You can have it, because I want to be Jackie Daytona.