HIPAA

When I was 16 I worked in a humane society as a caller as part of a community outreach class. I helped with processing applications. This mostly consisted of calling the references, landlords, vets etc. You have to call the landlord to confirm that pets are allowed in the home and you have to call the vet to confirm that any current pets in the residence are up to date on shots (we can’t send a pet to a home with a rabid animal). Not a call center, but we had 4 students at once calling for a few hours a day.

I was processing the application for one lady and everything was going smoothly. I came down to the current pet information and saw that she had TEN other cats listed and the vet information but no vaccination information. Hmm. I call the number listed for the vet anyways. Me is me and CL is cat lady.

CL: HELLOOO? Me: Hi this is aaareed calling from the humane society regarding the application of cat lady. I want to check what vaccinations cat 1 through 10 (I actually had to say all their names) have had in the past year. CL: WHAT? Me: -repeats the same thing again-

At this point I knew that I wasn’t talking to a vet’s office. Sometimes people try to cheat the system by putting their friends as their landlord or just lie about something. This lady clearly put down her home phone for her vets number. Sure enough, I check her contact info and it was the same number. Usually they aren’t this obvious and I have to search to find the real number. This typically makes them not qualify for the pet depending on the situation.

Anyways.

CL: You want to know what IMMUNIZATIONS my KITTIES have had? IN. THE. PAST. YEAR.? Me: Yes… we need to know in order to process the application. Is this the vets office? CL: No I’m not giving that out.

Well at least there’s no beating around the bush with this lady.

Me: Okay. Can you please give us the vet’s number so we can call them? CL: And you’re going to ask them for MY KITTIES’ IMMUNIZATION RECORDS? Me: Yes. CL: HMMMMMMM. Last time I checked there was something called HIPAA. I ought to report you for asking things like this! Me: Oh okay sorry ma’am, we don’t need your records. Thank you. click

Application goes into the shredder and I mark the log as falsifying information.