HIPAA violations would describing these be considered violations?

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boltedbicorne

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I want to talk about some volunteering experiences I had as a medical scribe during interviews. One experience i'll describing involves a patient who had a certain chronic condition (hepatitis C) and had been treated previously with interferon and had very severe side effects (she had a psychiatric breakdown). She was with the doctor for treatment, several decades later, and her condition has gotten worse, but she didn't want to use the treatment plans for her conditions due to the experiences she had in the past, and when it came down to it she would rather accept her condition and the consequences of not taking her medicine, than risk taking such a similar medicine again. We had to work with her but ultimately accept her decision. Is anything I'm saying in that description a HIPAA violation if I don't name her? What about disclosing the backgrounds of some patients because of how diverse they were? E.g. "I worked with patients who were missionaries in rwanda, holocaust survivors, and even hollywood producers". Would that be a HIPAA violation?

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Doesn't seem like it, you're not identifying a specific person.
 
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A HIPAA violation would be divulging information that could be used to specifically identify a patient. For example, saying "I treated Bob Jones" or "I saw the 43rd President of the United States" would be violations. Nothing you listed qualifies.
 
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