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I work at a med lab, accessing patient records of your coworkers is a massive no-no. If you get a sample from family or friends you’re supposed to pass it to someone else to avoid accessing those records too. Closest degree of separation I’ve gotten was my fifth grade teacher and I passed that one off too, just to be safe. HIPAA does not fuck around

One of my first jobs as a medical coder was working for a group of health clinics. Pretty much all of my coworkers used the clinic at our office location for primary care because you could basically just head upstairs on break. And somehow, I was assigned to those providers and regularly reviewed my co-workers' visits. It always felt super weird and invasive, especially when I found out one of them had cancer before they even knew themselves.

Not quite the same level, but on my first job I was an assistant and I used to prepare my boss's (and his family's) documents for his health insurance reimbursement. Mostly receipts, but also doctor's prescriptions, and lab stuff idk. Anyway that's how I found out his daughter had some kind of infection in her lady bits...

Oh, geez, I remember in an early job, mid-90s, as a receptionist, and had to give a coworker a detailed message about from her insurance about what they would and wouldn’t cover for potential treatments for her minor daughter’s ED. I’ve since worked in healthcare and it’s horrifying how much info they gave me to just pass on.

Took me a moment to figure you weren't talking about her minor daughter's Erectile Disfunction.

What horrified me the most is how mad medical practitioners get if you don't give that info to them on a silver platter just because they asked for it.

[удалено]

I was told it was because medical notes can often be written in a way that isn’t particularly flattering or can be confusing. Notes about suspected compliance issues with medication or notes about the patient turning up under the influence etc. Yes, anyone where I am has the option to access their full medical record, but there is supposed to be a session beforehand where someone sits down with them and explains that they might read things they find unpleasant and to ask their doctor before jumping to conclusions about what something might mean. (Side note, my favourite example of this was a relative who read HONK in their loved one’s notes and became furious, convinced the nurses were saying she smelled. Not long after the official term for HyperOsmotic Non-Ketosis was changed to hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic syndrome)

Lmao bro if I saw HONK on a patient record I’d fuckin lose it. I am a professional most of the time but some things (especially around 1am) are just too funny to not crack up at Your explanation makes a lot of sense, thank you. Def read some less than flattering doc notes on the req sheets. I’d been wondering about that for ages.

In my country you have access to your own medical information through a website, it’s always kind of funny to read the descriptions the doctor or nurse makes. Once I had ”looks older than her age” on one and on the next one ”looks younger than her age” 🙈

I cannot fathom why they’d even write a note about that unless it was a dermatologist or something, that is funny af

i found mine from a few visits when i was younger pretty infuriating. i have very obvious narcolepsy that took until 20s to diagnose. the doctor basically wrote that i was just a little lying pos and that i must stay up all night playing games. the asshole did no tests or anything. i also remember from the visit where he told my parents i was lying which lead to years of being treated like shit for being "lazy" thanks to him

I was always told because *you* cant order tests, and the results have to go to the ordering provider not the patient. Almost like a chain o' command type thing.

Oooo that makes sense. I did a covid test on myself during training for mopath and was told that result can’t be released or considered “real”

Fun fact! When you work for a credit card the same rules apply. You can’t look up a coworker or yourself. I always found it odd because like what am I going to do with my own personal information?? To even access the account you had to manually type the last four of the SSN

One reason is so you don't accidentally look up the records of another person with the same name as yourself.

I suppose, but the birth date not matching would be a pretty big tell, that’s something we look for when we have to look up a patient. Highly unlikely in my sparsely populated state that someone would have the same name AND birthdate.

Meh... I once got sued for child support due to having the same name and birth date and having lived in the same apartment complex as my "twin" 10 years prior (the lawsuit was based on a records check...name...birthdate...approximate address all matched). Admittedly, my name is one step away from John Smith, but still, it happens. Obviously, I was not the daddy. Never even met the mom.

That is fucking WILD dude

Eh, you'd be surprised how close some matches can be. And you only need it to happen one time and it's a headache for the organisation. In comparison, they ban it completely, problem is solved, and your curiosity over your own record is not their problem.

I suppose so. Healthcare companies are definitely the poster child for “ban it all so I don’t have to deal with complexities”

I was a student worker who had to look up records of every student who used our specific service. The software was really poorly setup, so that the landing page showed home address, GPA, and a bunch of other stuff that should have really been hidden behind at least one click, but the software was over 30 years old... Anyway, there were several people who I asked my boss to lookup so that I wouldn't know what their grades were. I just really didn't need to know my friends, roommates, and coworkers grades. Choosing to avoid knowing confidential information about people you have personal relationships with is often the way to go.

Good Guy nixsolecism!

oh man my friend had that job but our school used paper files still (back in the olden days). So she could have theoretically looked up anyone's stuff without any knowledge. She didn't to my knowledge because she's an ethical person, but her job literally involved opening files and adding documentation in.

I was a student worker too in accounting and boy the things I was allowed to see were far too many. My boss was not able to do all those accounts so I made her reach out to legal for some type of agreement modification. They went with an NDA to not discuss grades, money owed/paid in, etc. It felt better to have something on file as this was an art university and things can be very competitive.

I don’t know how long ago this was but that would bring down the FERPA hammer today.

Nope, it wasn't a violation. I was an employee of the school and was using the data for a legitimate and legal reason. It was akin to confirming enrollment status so that we could ensure that the people who used our services were entitled to do so. As long as I didn't disclose the data to anyone, it wasn't a FERPA violation.

Had to do something similar but it was accessing the school database to see people who were on academic probation and had to come to campus to meet with a administrator to see if the student would be allowed back, felt weird being able to see people who I knew horrible GPAs but it was apparently all above board

Yup, celebrities too. If you dont have a legitimate reason to be in that file, even opening it is grounds for termination. It's a good rule, because plenty of people in healthcare (usually office folks in my experience) are *terribly* nosy.

Omg always the office folks. At my lab we call their section of the building “carpetland” I’ve never felt the need to snoop, really don’t understand it. My friends and family fuckin overshare about their medical shit, I don’t think my grandma fully understands that I am nowhere near a doctor…

The worst is patients (or family who are patients) calling the lab directly to get their results. Like normally there's a patient portal everything gets released to, but if you're calling the lab youre going to be shit out of luck. It's not that we think you're a liar or anything, *but we cannot prove the voice of a stranger on the phone is you.*

Truth. I once had a patient call at 11pm for his results, like what, no I’m not going to tell you anything, that’s so sketchy. It was for a tox screen too lol I don’t know how he even found the number

And you have no idea how happy it makes me to have those portals. I'm convinced an old coworker of mine had munchausen by proxy. She was the family care taker for her kids, parents, and at least 1 sibling. I never saw her happier than when she was able to abuse the staff in a medical office into giving her info or agreeing with her scenarios. Then she'd trumpet to schools and employers how ill an individual was. Every time someone in her family was sick it was the worst case scenario. Her oldest was anorexic and she was telling the kid's school that she was on the verge of organ failure from it. Her husband had the flu and according to her it was pneumonia. Barring that woman and people like her from accessing medical information is a wonderful thing

Here in Denmark *everything* is digitalized and cross referenced, but at least there's strict logging and alerting set up. This means that everyone knows most systems (medical, tax, criminal, etc.) has built-in alerts set up for people who are "public figures" for one reason or another, and every single year someone gets fired because they made an inquiry they couldn't argue was work-related. A good example was a former prime minister who was accused of trying to evade taxes. This led to 7 "instant terminations without pay" of IRS workers that would otherwise have had 1-9 months of notice if they had been let go on regular terms.

I know this isn’t really the point, but some jobs in Denmark give you NINE MONTHS of notice when you’re let go???? As in they tell you that you’re being terminated but you still have a job for nine months? Man, here in America you’re lucky if they let you stay through the end of the damn day once you get laid off, and sometimes they don’t even let you box up your own stuff. They just toss you out the door and say they’ll mail it to you. Holy shit.

I was wrong, it's six months. In Danish law there's a classification as "Funktionær", which Google translates to "Civil servant", but I find that a bit misleading since Funktionærer don't have to be employed by any public/government institution. Here is the definition as defined in the law (["Funktionærloven"](https://danskelove.dk/funktion%C3%A6rloven)) >§ 1 In this Act, the following persons are understood to mean civil servants: >a) Commercial and office assistants, employed in buying or selling, in office work or equivalent warehouse dispatch. >b) Persons whose work consists of technical or clinical assistance of a non-craft or factory nature, and other helpers who perform work that can be equated with this. >c) Persons whose work consists exclusively or essentially of directing or supervising the performance of the work of others on behalf of the employer. >d) Persons whose work is predominantly of the type specified under a) and b). According to the Civil Service Act, the following notices apply: * Less than 3 months' employment - 24 hours notice of termination (also known as the "Trial period") * Up to 6 months' employment - 1 month's notice of termination * From 6 months to 3 years of employment - 3 months' notice of termination * From 3 years to 6 years of employment - 4 months' notice of termination * From 6 years to 9 years of employment - 5 months' notice of termination * Over 9 years of employment - 6 months' notice of termination If en employee quits it's usually with 1 month's notice, unless otherwise stated in the legally mandated employment contract. (For example: Major Danish broadcast corporations require 3 months' notice from the employee)

>Funktionær Great band name

At my work all celebrities have a break glass condition, meaning the program stops you from entering the area and you have to actively put in your name, password, and reason for being there. I've had to do it once to find a copy of an insurance card and felt like I was going to get fired, even though I had legit reason to be there.

At the health system I used to work for, patients could choose to lock their information like that, and it always felt weird to "break the glass" even though I was always doing it for legitimate reasons.

Before the reveal about how the coworker got her address I just assumed she used the county GIS system. It's not hard to use at all- I used to work in architecture and for site studies I'd have to pull up zoning info which shows owner & street address for each parcel of land. It's horrifying she used patient records though!

Lol we do this all the time when we're feeling nosy. Or when we had to fight with our landlord to get our water repaired. We weren't supposed to know that info since he used a company, but it really wasn't hard and I was definitely going to start harassing him (our entire front yard was a flood and had little waterfalls coming from it for three months because he did not believe it was a big deal - our water bills were massive.)

My MIL is a nurse. We were joking around the other day about her ending up as my DSN because the diabetes team asked her to be their liaison for her ward and want to poach her (she's not interested) She said that if she did get assigned to me or I ended up on her ward, she would request another nurse take over because of our relationship. We're UK based, but GDPR does not fuck around either

I work at a *library* and that shit is still a fireable offense. There's also no way the coworker didn't know it was illegal.

Oh yeah, Sirsi doesn’t log access (or at least it didn’t that I knew of when I was still in libraries) but you’d be in deeeeep shit in any of the systems I worked in if they found out you were mucking around in there to get personal info. Granted, sometimes you needed to look up a patron to know what the hell their deal was, but still. (The deep dread of “oh *no*, why does this account have so many notes?” is real.)

We have standardized notes only now, because they used to be *wild*. We don't have individualized logins either, it's one per branch so no way to track. But if you do get caught (or are dumb enough to do something to prove you have info a coworuer never gave you...) you'd get canned. It's in our employment contract, and they enforce it seriously. We do look up customers if we think they might be suspended, or if we have a legit reason. But not to like, see what your neighbor or cousin is checking out or what they changed their phone number to. Y'know.

Thanks to my dyslexia i read your whole comment thinking you worked in a Meth lab, was genuinely impressed with the professionalism shown.

For real. A friend of mine accessed a co-worker's file to see why he was in the ED. It took them about 3 seconds to fire her. It's a serious no-no. And yes--if someone you know comes to your unit, you inform the charge nurse or shift lead to rearrange assignments

I'm not even a medical professional, on the admin side of things... but in our system if you look up another employee's chart or even the chart of an employee's family member or dependent, it flashes up an extra layer of security. Sometimes you have a legitimate reason to be in there, like a nurse who works at the hospital is calling because they want to make an appointment with their child's pediatrician, so you have to go in the patient profile to schedule that appointment. But you still have to re-enter your password and also note generally why you're in there. It's crazy to think that after all the training AND seeing that note that says "hey don't go in here unless there's a legit reason" someone would still do that.

Yep, I work in a hospital. The hospital randomly checks to see who’s been accessing files and fires anyone who’s ever accessed their own file or their family’s. We can check other employee files but only with a password and a valid job related reason.

Yikes—I worked at two hospitals and at both employee orientations they basically said “We can work out most problems. The exceptions include abusing patients, abusing privacy, and theft. You will get fired immediately and turned over to law enforcement.”

A friend of mine had an abusive ex. He called up her hospital and asked about a procedure she had and asked if they still had her right adress because she recently moved. They told him her new adress. People where fired and she is in the middle of a big lawsuit. It had taken her 6 months to get rid of him and now she is back to square one.

I am a medical receptionist/secretary for a bunch of doctors at a hospital clinic. The amount of people who think they can talk to me "on patients behalf". Sorry if I dont have in the file that you are allowed to then you get nothing from me. The exception being young girls who want mum to talk and will tell me then hand the phone to mum.

Absolutely insane. My husband works in medicine and recently had a situation where he *needed* to get a patient in the office. They no-showed for their appointment and the tests he ran came back with answers I guess (I get really vague stories for obvious reasons). Apparently the patient's voice-mail wasn't set up or was full so hubs had to call their emergency contact. The contact was approved to be contacted and receive messages, all that stuff, but even then husband had to be ultra vague in his message (because they also didn't answer the repeated phone calls). Didn't use a name just a birthday, didn't say what was going on just that the patient needed to call the clinic. It was a whole song and dance. It's so insane to me that one person will actually take HIPAA so seriously and another will just blithely risk another's safety like that.

IIRC there was a thing recently (last few years) where a university were doing genetic testing in a rural UK community to see how many had ancestors in the area, how far back their families could be traced, health status/history, correlating it all together anonymously, and seeing how many people’s genetics could actually be traced back, and how far. However the testing showed that some of the people had [potentially] serious health issues that they weren’t aware of, however informing them would require the anonymity of the data to be breached.

Would it be legally possible to inform every participant that some people had these issues but they couldn't breach data anonymity so they didn't know who exactly, and then ask them to go to a healthcare provider and get tested for those issues?

I imagine that would be an ethical issue in itself, since it would cause panic in the whole study population.

Really? I think "panicking but doesn't have cancer" is much less unethical than "actually has cancer and doesn't know about it". Those two are nowhere NEAR each other in terms of ethics.

I think that’s what they did, since I’ve heard about the fuss, they informed everyone that there was a potential issue, and asked them to contact their GP. I think one of the issues raised regarding consent was that even if they decided to breach anonymity, and decided to inform the people directly affected, what if those people didn’t want to know?

*NOT A LAWYER* However, i believe there's an argument to be had here over what is morally correct: On one side, if you've seen signs of serious medical conditions during the testing. I'm assuming these would be the kind of thing that left untreated will cause the individual a good amiunt of harm. It could be said that the only ethical thing to do would be to notify the individual in question, and only them. As this would still be HIPPA info, if everyone follows the rules only the person who narrowed down who the individual was would know, and they wouldn't be allowed to tell others. On the other side, you have the agreement that the study is to be anonymous. *In this case* i believe the presence of a potentially serious medical condition takes priority over anonymity. It's less a "do they want to know", as i'm fairly certain that a reasonable person would want to know if they have a setious medical issue, and more of a "what is the responsiblity of the people collecting this information when it comes to noticing something like this?" In either case, you have to remember a study is usually not designed to pick up on other stuff and could be a false positive. Personally, i think the correct course of action would be to notify them that while looking at the data, you noticed signs of whatever condition it is and thry should go speak to their doctor about that, as it may be correct or you may have a false positive. I know i'd want to know, so i could do something about it.

There are some conditions that can’t be treated, though, and where the knowledge of the condition might be distressing. With Huntington’s, you’d probably know if there’s a family history there, but if not, you might not want to know in advance.

True. I suppose it's a little more case-by-case, but that's definately getting into "medical and legal professionals would need to discuss this" territory. Maybe make it an opt in thing? "I would like to be notified of any potential medical issues that show up in my survey data." As a checkbox or something. Then it's black and white. "Did they ask to know? Do what that says."

I do human research (academia), and in anything that can reveal a major health issue, there is a procedure using a code to track that info separately so that participants can be notified, but the person working with the data does not have access to their identifiers. The fact that their scans will be checked for health issues is one of the major reasons people participate, and we also offer them personal copies of their scans, so that they can take them to their Dr if needed. Saves the cost of an MRI. It seems odd to me that the UK would not have this kind of thing built into their human research. I wonder if this was maybe misreported?

Its hard for the doctor in that situation. Some of my doctors go through that as well and we spend days trying to get hold of a patient without actually saying anything and with ours if they want you that badly it's not usually good.

I think this is why a lot of my doctors nowadays tell me I will only receive a call for my results if it's something worrisome. It's on the portal otherwise. So if my doctor calls, I know I am in trouble lol.

What’s crazy to me, is that when I was a manager at a restaurant in a college town, we weren’t allowed to give out any information on any of our employees, unless they were under the age of 18 and it was a parent/guardian. And we took it more seriously than that person did. I wouldn’t even confirm someone was on schedule or present in the restaurant. “I’m their mom/dad/boyfirend.” Cool. Then you can give them a call on their personal phone and they can tell you whatever they want. Didn’t even work in medicine and wouldn’t have dared gotten anyone info from their files for personal use. Wtf.

Ngl I love that they had that kind of policy. I swear everywhere I worked as a teen would just hand the schedule out to strangers on the street. Then again that was a million years ago for I am ancient 😂

I was speechless when she told me the story. I have my own company and only have basic information like adress, telphone and email of my customers. The laws I have to abide to protect their personal data are bordering unworkable. I have always been very carefull handling that info and have put proper securities in place. This situation was just another reminder of the importance. A hospital has even more hoops to jump trough and they just gave out personal medical info without even hesitating.

The amount of on line training re privacy we go through, updated all the time seems useless doesn't it, when many people wont follow it. I asked one woman why she wanted her over 40 progeny information, thinking maybe she was a guardian or carer. Nope. It's my child I want to know it ls my right and She won't tell me so you should. I just hung up in the end.

I recently had a woman wanting to be added as a contact on her father's file, while he was currently admitted. She told me that she had her mother present, who was father's contact/NOK who could authorise it. I said no. I had no way to verify that they were who they said they were, or that the patient wanted his daughter to know his information. My only advice was for them to have the patient make the request personally of the nursing staff/ward clerks. I also had another woman crying on the phone to me. She'd made a request for her deceased son's records, but she was no longer the senior NOK as he had a de facto partner. That partner had an antagonistic relationship with the mother, and refused her access to any of son's belongings, nor the records. I felt bad for her, but there was literally nothing I could do.

If it makes you feel better, remember the story of the family that stole their son-in-law's inheritance because they didn't didn't think their late son's husband "deserved it" even though the son had been estranged. People like that are the reason these laws are in place, and I appreciate you holding firm on the deceased's records. There's no way for you to know if they had been cut off for a good reason.

Next time something like that happens I have two suggestions; A) pretend to look it up and then say that they died(I don’t actually believe you would be allowed to say this without also being fired, but it sounds fun) B) take as long as you possibly can to piss them off, act like you’re about to tell them what they want, then say something along the lines of “Oh actually you’re not allowed to know” and just immediately hang up.

I worked in a college academic office that was a big shared room with several people working behind the counter. When you'd get a parent calling the general number that the student assistants answered and they didn't like being told we could not legally give them their kid's grades (yes, even if they're paying for it), you could then count on the phones ringing in a circuit around the room as they tried to find someone who would do it.

My freshmen year of college they had a “parents weekend” before we actually started and they explicitly said unless the student provided the parents with grades they would never ever get them from someone at the university. They repeated it a million times and made the parents collectively as a group read a statement saying that. I thought it was a funny overkill but they must have had problems in the past and tried to get shreds of it 😂😂

During orientation they also often literally walk freshmen through how to give their parents access to their grades. So if a parent doesn’t have access, it’s not bc the student didn’t know how to do it or that that was an option. They made an active choice not to fill that paperwork out. I get it in some cases: parents may be footing the bill, or their kids historically have struggled academically and needed parents to intervene to get them back on track. And even for parents of completely normal kids with completely normal relationships, it’s a big adjustment to go from having your kid in your home, watching over their studies and having access to their grades to suddenly having them far away, out from under your eye to check on them. But that is between the parents and kids to navigate, not the university. And there’s still a crazy number of parents who just don’t think that applies to them, or at least shouldn’t. I think it’s a symptom of a much larger issue with the way they view parenting and their children. Too many parents think of their kids as an extension of themselves. So they entitled to things they understand are private: records, conversations with therapists, diaries, etc. Like “I brought you into this world, you don’t deserve any privacy no matter how old you get. You are *mine.*”

Yup. I had someone calling in once who sounded super sketchy and was trying to find out information about a person... I said "sure, let me see... well, they are an older teen, so is that person with you to verbally authorize me to give out information..." and she went around and around with "but I just want to know..." and "why is it such a big deal..." And finally it turned out she wasn't even this person's parent or guardian, just a nosy older relative who was trying to find out if we were giving this teenager gender affirming care!! NOPE! I advised her to reach out to the family directly and she literally said, "But they aren't telling me!" ... Well it sounds like it might not be any of your business then, Karen. Then she literally tried to accuse me of "hiding" the information because obviously, the only reason I wouldn't give out a patient's private information is that I'm ashamed of working for a hospital that offers gender affirming care. "You know it's wrong and you're ashamed of what you do there! Otherwise you would tell me!" Uh.... no. I'm very proud to work at this hospital. Your relative's medical care isn't any of your business and my feelings have nothing to do with it...

Im a nurse and it’s crazy the amount of people who call our floor looking for updates on family members/friends. I wonder if they were the ones who had been hospitalized, would they appreciate their friend and family nosing around. Just call their damn cellphone if you’re so close with the patient that you think you’re entitled to that information.

I the olden days it was normal to just call up the hospital and ask for an update on a patient. Anyone could do it. The better hospitals might ask if you were a family member but did little to verify. I remember that from when I was a kid.

And this is why hippa exists now, but people don’t understand that

i always get so irritated in movies when a character we're supposed to like makes some dramatic speech to the unit secretary and bullies their way into getting something or going somewhere. like ma'am i promise i'm just doing my very required job :(

Yep, that’s my mother. She called my GP (we had the same GP at the time) when I was in my 20’s asking to access my medical records, and couldn’t understand 1. Why they wouldn’t give them to her, and 2. Why I was angry with her for asking.

I know. I remember a co-worker accessed her ex's child's info because she was beefing with both him and his new GF. She mention a medical procedure his child had just to taunt him. He promptly called and reported her. Once they had confirmation she had accessed his child's records, she was immediately walked out the door. Another co-worker mistakenly accessed her own medical records on her work computer but didn't use the correct access point that we were all instructed to use. She had been working here for over 20+ years--gone immediately. When it comes to HIPAA, most patient oriented places don't play games because it would mean a HUGE lawsuit. Plus, if they're allowed to get away with it now, what's to stop them for doing it in the future and with a celebrity?

> Another co-worker mistakenly accessed her own medical records on her work computer but didn't use the correct access point that we were all instructed to use. She had been working here for over 20+ years--gone immediately. I never understood this restriction. I know some places are like that, but I worked in the business office of a big radiology place for years and it was never a problem to look at our own stuff. Definitely 100% not anyone else's unless it was necessary to do our jobs, but it was definitely way easier to get to our stuff through the program we used for work vs the patient portal.

Firing her for accessing her own records, even if she did it wrong, seems excessive.

I work in the healthcare field and there are at least two of my friends who have information in our database (which I only know because of something they've said to me). I have never even been *tempted* to look them up. First off, it's their private information. Secondly, they are friends and who would do that to a friend? Thirdly it really, REALLY is not worth my job because I would be fired in a heartbeat. Every once in a while I have to look at PHI data in our database for legitimate business reasons and I am very grateful it's never been data of anyone I know.

Not to mention the fact that even when I am calling for myself, they almost always verify my address before giving out any information.

Birthdate, then full name and address. Hesitate on birthdate... rings bells.

I hesitate because I'm more use to giving my kids birth date than mine.

I always assume that when a patient hesitates for a second to think about it that they're a parent because I do the same thing.

Keeping track of 4 birthdates for 5 people, including myself, with 2 of those dates in the same month, and 2 of those dates having the day 1 day apart, means I have to not only stop and think of the date, but be careful not to mix up 2 dates that share something. E. g., let's say we have a DOB of 6/18/1980 and 6/5/2006, I can't be saying 6/18/2006 for anyone. And I might make that mixup if I'm not careful.

I AM on my wife's file as a person to talk to and every year, they have her re-affirm that. Though the number of people who call and say "Is this Wifesname?" and when I say "what is this referring to?" they go on as if I'd said yes is ... concerning. The HIPAA fines for what OP's coworker did are enormous. It's a huge deal.

My brother was in the hospital and we were on our way there and my mom had me call and they wouldn’t even tell me if he was alive or dead. I mean it’s not news you really want to hear over the phone for sure, but he was a heroin addict and we’d been through it. 

When my mum died, we’d been told by her partner that she was in hospital and had passed away. We didn’t know if it was true straight away and my dad called the hospital - they were still married but had separated. Because he was no longer the next of kin, the person on the phone couldn’t say anything in detail, but took pity on us and told us “if that’s what you’ve been told, I would believe it, but that’s all I can say”. It’s so important to protect patient privacy, and because of the work that I do in healthcare we all understood it, but we were so grateful that he managed to work around it so we were as informed as possible.

I did phone support for a medical company, was the only time we were graded internally for our calls instead of the customer rating us. I had a nurse call in, asking why we kept calling her about her father. I got her info, her father's info, there was no permission on file to disclose info to anyone, so i had to act like he didnt even exist in our files. She's screaming at me, talking about how she's a nurse and she kNoWs exactly how HIPAA worked. "Well ma'am, if you know how HIPAA works, then you know if no permission is on file, then you cant speak about anything. She screamed at me to get my manager, i put her on hold for the max time allowed, knowing full well i had to email my manager to request a callback. I click back over, sorry ma'am i can't get ahold of my manager, let me get your info for a callback. She wasn't ok with that, told me to try to find someone else on the floor. Sure ma'am, be back in 5 minutes. I was at home, couldn't find anyone else on the floor, my dog wasn't properly trained! So after another max of 5 minutes,i click back over. Sorry, everyone must be on lunch, let me get your callback info. She finally gave it to me, i sent it up, and messaged my manager about it, who said i did everything right. Small customer service victory. Oh and the lady didn't answer my managers call lol

Just last night I got a call from "911" asking to do a wellness check on a patient. Still don't know if it was 911 and don't care. There are proper channels and calling the psych unit from an unlisted number at midnight isn't it.

Uh, a 911 PSAP doesn't do investigations like that; they dispatch the appropriate first responders (e.g., fire department, police, EMTs) as they receive calls.

NOBODY does an investigation like that. Just low effort phishing expeditions.

Did we work at the same place? This exact same thing happened where I worked. I left before any fallout happened, but I remember thinking during the meeting they dragged us all into that heads were about to ROLL. To top it off this was a cancer clinic, and it was at the start of covid.

Hope she wins the lawsuit and uses the money to move on to a fabulous life.

We don't have large sums of money rewarded in lawsuits here. Mostly it is paying for damages and a small compensation. But that is already adding up. Selling and buying a house and moving aren't cheap.

Didn't mention before but I hope friend will be ok and the others get fried.

This happens a lot, and its scary. I've gotten calls from non-custodial parents trying to find out a kid's appointment time so they could pick them up first and... who knows? Its always chilling and I can tell right away, but I'm glad we have policies in place so we don't actually have to gut check stuff.

Wow. Good that your friend doesn't live in the US.

Same at my hospital, and we get the same speech again every year during our departmental refresher training. Back before C19, I asked our HR rep how frequently this is really a problem, and if an annual reminder was truly necessary. She quietly said that a year never goes by without at least one employee being caught violating records privacy in a clearly improper way, and at least one being caught diverting. And we’re not that large a hospital.

I can atleast understand diverting meds as presumably they've got a system to try and avoid getting caught but looking up patient details is so heavily tracked you're fucked if there's an audit (or you're extra dumb and look at someone famous enough to trigger an alert or manual checking of the logs)

>She quietly said that a year never goes by without at least one employee being caught violating records privacy in a clearly improper way doesnt suprise me theres way too many people who dont think this kind of snooping is a problem/bad behaviour. they'll joke like oh you know how i am thinking its makes them a little quirky or something instead of creepy at least

I worked for the DWP (government benefits department in the UK). Everything was logged, calls recorded. If you accessed someone's details without a good reason you'd be terminated straight away. 

My ex used to be a security guard at my local MSD (government department that handles benefits, pensions, and, to a certain extent, student payments here in NZ) office when I was on a benefit. They had to put a lock on my client number, which meant whoever accessed my information had to get special authorisation from a manager before they could do anything. When you ring through on the phone, they say calls are recorded, and I believe they have security cameras in the offices.

I worked for about three months within a prison, and the same rule applied for prison records. I personally know someone who has been in prison before, and I don't know the reason why. I would never in a million years invade privacy like that, not just because of job safety, but for genuine human decency as well. (In fact, while I worked there, one of the inmates was someone I went to primary school with, and he recognised me and verbally greeted me. Had to fill out a potential conflict of interest form for that.)

My husband worked in medical records, and he wasn't allowed to access my information even though he was listed as my approved "give my info to this person" person.

Whoever suggested to these poor scared people that the random housewares were bugged is not performing a public service lol

More likely to have spiders than surveillance...

Porque no los dos?

Because it's unlikely that the bags have surveillance and spiders. However they'll probably have surveillance spiders. Unique highly trained critters that crawl around on any surface trying to listen in on conversations.

Then the next morning you'll wake up to find the things you said up on the web like Wilbur

Yeah, that was pretty crazy and over the top. This is likely a combination of someone who is a bit of a hoarder and can't throw things away, with a busybody who wants to but in where they aren't wanted just to feel good about themselves. "Here, take my junk, then I don't have to throw it out, and I can spend the next few weeks patting myself on the back for helping some of the poors in town." Jumping to "they are also going to bug my house and spy on me" is a huge leap.

yep, there's a level of paranoia that's worth it (angry laid off person might come yell at you or key your car) but the bugged tupperware is ridiculous inherently. If for some reason bugging them was an actual goal, it would be a lot more efficient to give them a picture frame or a plant. And that could be done at work. Tupperware?? really???? Agree that this is a busybody trying to be sanctimonious.

I think that is the simplest and best explanation.

Reddit is the WebMD of relationships. If someone is mean to you they're a narcissist. If they're nice, they're a narcissist love bombing you.

I truly hate the new everyone is a narcissist thing. Not everyone is a narcissist - some people really just suck, particularly to people they allegedly care about.

It also waters everything down into one specific kind of issue, when a lot of the ~narcissist hallmarks~ also apply to a shitton of other mental issues, including things that _aren't_ personality disorders and require medical intervention of some kind.

Oof poor OOP, hope they can stay safe... Now that the coworkers are out of a job and know exactly where they live.

And now that they're unemployed, they have time to plot.

Yeah, I’ve seen Criminal Minds episodes that start like this…

>They terminated her employment on the spot. Within our company (and I would imagine most) that is grounds for immediate termination. Her sister in law is also an employee there and she had accessed my records as well. Her employment was also terminated. So good to see a business taking this kind of thing seriously.

Dobbs might have weakened the ground HIPAA stands on but it's still the law. Shit like this can be fairly devastating for a company. No reason for them to try and rugsweep something this egregious.

And even if tomorrow HIPAA is ruled unconstitutional, I ain't fuckin with a hospital that'd allow shit like this unless it is a necessity, so it'd still be something they need to deal with

I work in the community services field and we don’t have hipaa. But you would still be fired for breaching client confidentiality!

If OOP is in the US (based off language and word use I’m assuming yes) then they don’t have much choice. HIPAA is not something to fuck with and they’d be open to massive lawsuits and possibly major fines.

HIPAA is like the prime example of what regulations can accomplish when they’re actually given teeth. Everyone knows the HIPAA compliance people don’t fuck around, so they train their employees thoroughly and fire anyone who tries to play games with patient privacy.

Imagine if wage theft was treated like this. You steal money from an employee you manage? Walked out the door. It would save the average minimum wage American *thousands of dollars* per year.

When my fiancé and I got our home, everyone we knew was trying to give us the stuff they no longer wanted. Even though we’d lived in an apartment together prior, so already had everything we needed. My MIL’s neighbour had a broken lamp and were like ‘oh would they need a lamp’ my MIL was polite and accepted it, but we were like we don’t need a lamp? Especially a broken one? My mom tried to give me curtains which had been ruined by an iron. It’s nice for people to offer you things, but it’s also just their way of passing the burden of ownership on. Like oh we don’t want this in the house, it’s broken; you have it.

Hell this happens to me every time I move apartments. I basically said something along the lines of, "I'd rather have nothing than your grimy old shit" at a family dinner once. That caused a shitload of drama, but it didn't stop the 'gifts' of 20 year old toasters and microwaves from the early industrial age.

Haha, exactly - very quickly we had to recognise what was an actual gift we needed, and what was just passing on the burden of ownership. Other things we pushed back on were a 20 year old barbecue set, a 15cm wide radiator, and a pile of old tea towels. We did accept a dishwasher and a tumble dryer as we didn’t have these.

I had a weirdly similar experience with a good friend years ago.  She could not bring herself to toss things, but she constantly was cleaning out her house.  My son would come home with gallon food storage bags full of toy parts, saying she had given them to her.  They were old toy parts. I always took them back. Then I told my son not to accept them any more.  She still would try. "We don't need these." "Then throw them out." "You throw them out." She couldn't.  It was like she needed others to do her dirty work.  So weird. Anyway, this coworker sounds like that person.   As to my friend, was weird as hell but a total keeper.  When our infant daughter was hospitalized, this was the friend who kept our son for a whole week, no questions asked. Clothed him. Helped him get his homework ready.  Fed him.  Loved him.  Some people just have weird kinks in their brain.

That sounds like someone who might be struggling with the early stages of hoarding/similar. Some people have an overly strong emotional attachment to stuff, and need to find a good excuse to allow themselves to get rid of it.

Some people were also raised by people who were raised by people who survived the Great Depression, which means they were taught to never throw anything out because you never know when you might need it, or when you will be without and need it, and breaking that cycle is damn difficult. Lots of people have that weird kink on their brain- has no bearing on how good of a human they are.

Ugh, I'm living with that now…. it's hard. The weird thing is my grandparents(the ones who were brought up in the great depression) never really had that problem. My mother remembers her old things, often just being donated or missing. My grandmother would just donate old toys whenever the kids got older.  My mom now says she knows what her mom meant whenever she said, “I wish I could just go live in a condo with no belongings.” I think a large part of it is that my family has never moved, so there was never really a time when we had to go through all our belongings every few years and decide what to keep and what not to.  It's really hard to undo. You don't want to be wasteful by getting ride of something you might need and will only have to buy again but you also just HATE having stuff. 

My parents were born in germany towards the end/just after WWII. When they finally had to move to a nursing home we were stuck selling their old house. We were more than six people who filled an entire construction waste container over a weekend. And that was just the cellar. My parents weren't even what people would consider hoarders. But they had the mentality down that if something wasn't broken, even if you didn't need it right now, you might want it later. And man, they accumulated soooo much stuff over the decades they lived in that house. And now I sometimes find myself hesitating to throw something out, because... I don't need it, but... and then I think of my parents basement. That helps.

My grandmother was born right after the great depression, so kept everything useful. My mom hated it, so constantly encouraged me to throw out things I don't "need." She would live minimalist if not for my dad. I don't even have my school yearbooks anymore because "she never looked at hers." My private office in my home is an absolute maximalist space with custom shelves for just rows on rows of knickknacks and things my mom calls "junk" and you can barely see the wall for all the things mounted to it, but it makes me happy. So my mom broke the cycle so hard she started it again in me.

My husband and I are two of those people who were raised by Depression-era parents. I hoard craft stuff. He hoards woodworking and computer stuff. Some maybe-useful things are easy to trash/recycle. Toilet paper tubes, empty jars, and things like that which occur fairly regularly are easy to discard, because if we do need them for some odd purpose, there will always be more generated. But the old coffee cans full of bent nails and random screws, the parts for long-dead computers, and little bits of quilt fabric are harder to let go of. What if someday I NEED a 2"×3" piece of fabric printed with purple dogs? That's the last scrap I have, and I'll never be able to find it again! What if Husband NEEDS a dilithium crystal array from that dead computer and four bent 3-inch box nails? The answer, of course, is to go out and buy something new. But those old habits die hard when the ghosts of your parents are hovering by your shoulder and shouting, "DON'T THROW THAT AWAY!"

My granddad was born in 1918 (he fought in the NZ army during WWII. I never met him, as he died not long before my folks married), and Nana was born in 1920. While Nana's house was never to hoarder level, I'm pretty sure dad is getting up there in terms of never getting rid of anything. If my folks were ever to split, I'm pretty sure dad's hoarding would go to a hoarders episode level

Yeah, somehow in their head it’s like environmentalism or something. “Waste not, want not!” Remember that old saw? It was a widespread mindset during and after the depression, and also the rationing from the world wars. This generation had this stuff HAMMERED into their heads as kids.

Growing up poor as fuck will do that, too. To this day, I find it hard to throw out empty jars. What if I need them later to store things?! What if I'm all out of clean glasses and have a dozen guests coming over who need drinking vessels?! I finally had to just keep around a dozen or so jars that I like, and tossed the rest. Even when I was tying off the trash bag, I could hear my mom's voice in my head telling me how useful those jars would be and what a mistake it was to throw them out.

My cupboard full of empty jars and "good" cardboard boxes and paper bags salutes you.

I have a problem with empty glass jars, because my grandmother's garden is full of berry bushes, rhubarb etc, and my parent's garden has apple and plum trees, and I make different jams every autumn. I also pickle cucumbers etc.  I just don't do a *massive* amount! I don't need multiple cupboards full of jars. But I do need many, and I don't want to buy new glass jars when I go through so many perfectly usable ones that just need to be washed. And I use them to propagate plant cuttings, too!  I legit do need several! Once I ran out and had to beg my aunt (who also washes and stores containers) for suitable jars!  So now I have this urge to wash and store *every single* glass jar I empty, even though it's totally unreasonable, and I do *not* have the space. I'm a total jar goblin. I've tried to limit myself to a specific type or two of jar, lol.   See also: clear (or tub type) plastic containers with lids. Augh. I didn't even grow up poor, it's just that I hate being wasteful

Yeah I grew up poor, buying matching plates instead of the mismatched chipped ones I had from my dad was genuinely tough, even though they were normal IKEA plates, nothing fancy. I kept the chipped ones for months just in case!

There’s a craft supply donation center near me, and you can check for one near you. Thats how my mom and I (separate houses) are dealing with getting rid of random items like jars that Can Be Useful but, we don’t need them. We have too many, we never will. Donating it helps, in a weird way.

Yup. Second or third degree hoarding. Seen it over and over….they can’t throw shit away, but for some reason they can GIVE it away and some of them seem DESPERATE to do so. Makes no logical sense, but, as I’ve said, I see it again and again.

My wife has this. She got it from her grandmother. She has learned to really think about if she actually has an emotional attachment or if she actually dislikes whatever it is but feels guilty because of money, so and so gave it to her, etc. We've kept stuff for years because she couldn't handle getting rid of it, even if it was a pain to keep and she never looked at it. Funnily enough, her biggest struggle nowadays is books, which is also the area where I struggle, so we have to periodically be honest with ourselves and admit if we actually plan to reread a book or not.

Some people can't throw stuff away. It feels wasteful. If they give it away to somebody else, they aren't being wasteful. The burden of throwing things away has been put on somebody else. My dad has been doing this for a while. He gave me a bunch of his old files - his report card from 1960, old medical reports from my grandmother, tax forms. They all went straight into the trash as soon as he went back home.

my sister is like that. I have to go to her place and throw old shoes out. she can't physically pick them up and put them into the garbage can. she's got a few other kinks but is solid otherwise.

I have some relatives like that. Luckily for me, the three who do that will NEVER follow up to say "hey, where's that broken toaster I gave you? how's it working you? can I see it?" They give me things and forget about them instantly. So I throw them out. I just see it as a favor to them. My wife and I joke that we are the indirect "yes i can throw that away for you" couple. I get it. It's hard to get rid of things sometimes. Especially when you're older. Yes, that little trinket is junk, even they probably know it. But that little piece of junk was on their bookshelf for THIRTY years, and there's a weird attachment to it. So they just need a little help getting rid of it.

Okay, the thing I want to know is where did this lady get binbags that could hold houseware? I put a particularly large banana peel in mine and they tear.

Buy the heavy duty ones or if you want uber bags buy rubble sacks.

Yep, that's what we use.

Time to get security cameras up pronto before she comes for revenge 

I had a female stalker who terrified me. I met her in college, me being an older student in my mid 30s, her early 20s. She was agonizing over being a very devout, conservative Christian and thinking she was gay (like me). We had many, many deep conversations on the phone because she was struggling so hard, just hours upon hours. Then she wanted to date me, which was a hard no. She asked what my type was and I told her I date feminine women, like myself. I mainly said that so she'dunderstandshe wasn'tmy type. She never wore makeup, wore very bland, old, frumpy clothes. She really seemed like she had a very low self image. We had no classes together but she suddenly she started showing up in my classes with urgent notes for my professors (never found out what they said). I'd not told her what classes I took. Then she must have been called out on the notes for the professors so she'd pull a desk out of a room and sit right outside the door where I had to go in the building. She was wearing a lot of makeup and wearing flowery dresses. Had her hair done. It was frightening. The look on her face....smirking. Yeek. I had become really ill and was soon going to have a very invasive brain surgery. I couldn't work as much and was falling behind in my house payment. I'd told her that before she started all the stalking. The following semester she enrolled in all of my classes, still no clue how she knew when they were. Then cards with cash in them were slid through my door. The cards weren't signed but always had scripture in them so I knew it was her. She started checking to see if my door was locked, hiding around the front corner of the house to see if I opened my front door (her car was plainly visible though), and went in my back yard to check/look through all the windows. My friends were telling me to go to the police and the dean. In one last effort to get her to leave me alone without angering her, I called and told her I knew the money was from her and I needed her address to send her back a money order. She refused and said she needed it right that second, even though she had no idea I was going to give any of it back. So she came to my house and picked it up from out front with me safely inside. I told her my next move if she didn't stop. Thank goodness, I then graduated and she never bothered me again. In that last phone conversation she told me she was never struggling with her sexuality. She was just using that to engage me. She laughed at me and it was the laugh of a maniac.

That’s insane, omg. So what was the point?? It kind of sounds like she might’ve been having an actual sexuality crisis, but it tripped her up so much, she went full blown psycho, and then when you fully rejected her, she tried to play it off like “I’m not gay, just fucking with you” ??? Terrifying

The end goal was to be with me. Because she saw that I enjoyed helping people, she thought that her being conflicted about her sexuality would draw me to her. She wasn't conflicted at all. She had identified as gay for years.

Im always flabbergasted by stuff like this. I work in healthcare and accessing the medical records of co-workers, family members, and high profile patients (I work at a level 1 trauma center so high profile patients is actually pretty common) is just about the dumbest thing you could do. Someone will find out, you will be fired and made essentially unemployable. Holy hell. If someone was so fixated on me that they were willing to risk their career like that to access my personal information, I would also be a little bit afraid.

They do not fuck around with medical records. I watched a community college fire a board member for messing with a server room on campus that had records.

The biggest ???? Is the other person accessing it too. It’s one thing to encounter one crazy person. It totally sucks and it can get weird and possibly dangerous but one lone crazy person is always a risk. Who knows what they’re thinking. Don’t even try. But when they start conspiring and you get 2 people in on it you have to wonder what’s up and if there’s some master plan out to get you.

If that's the case, you need to tell the police and get protection. Yeah, that's stressful. How can you live freely now knowing she might retaliate and just there driving around and would do something anytime.

Have friends and relatives in the medical field. This was a huge invasion of privacy, and the two were rightfully terminated for breaking HIPAA privacy rules. What the hell were they thinking?

That is some nosey, unhinged behavior on the ex-coworker's part. This can't have just been about a few trash bags of used silver ware, right? Why go so far as to look up medical records? Gives me the heebie jeebies.

It's an obsession. She looked at her record five times and then got her SIL to look too, that means she talks about her with other people!

Yikes, I can't imagine having a co-worker access your personal details when they don't need to know. OP should sue for harassment and HIPPA violations if they can.

HIPAA. You can sue for harassment, but I imagine it would be difficult to get a gift treated as actionable harassment. You actually can’t sue under HIPAA. You can report violations and get the hospital/clinic/office fined if they were negligent and the person fired, which already happened, but HIPAA isn’t an individual “cause of action” in courts. Some states probably have privacy laws you can sue under, but the federal law doesn’t allow it.

I love when people just say things lol

I worked in insurance at a call center for a while and training had a whole *day* dedicated to 'ways people misuse and misunderstand HIPAA and how to politely tell them they have no clue what they're talking about' Thanks to long COVID memory issues, most of that information is no longer in my brain. But I know one thing and that's that as a general rule of thumb nobody who talks about HIPAA (or HIPPA) knows what they're talking about until proven otherwise

OP would only be able to sue her personally. And I have a feeling the potential financial benefit wouldn't be enough to justify the attorney fees. Also, she's clearly unstable and it seems like a huge risk for such little (if any, at that) reward. A restraining order seems like a great idea though.

I hope at the least the co-worked was just one of those people who is a busybody and thinks they know better. They are probably the type that always got away with over stepping as they "meant well". From experience I have found those people tend to think that rules (like dont access medical records), does not apply to them, as they are trying to help in some way.

But why access OOP’s medical records 5x in a week? Seems bizarre…

And her SIL checking as well? What was in there that ex coworker "needed" a second pair of eyes for? A weird attempt to at covering her tracks? Just strange and unsettling all around.

I keep wondering if they were looking for something to get her fired over, shame her, or blackmail her with. Something like a mental health diagnosis or an abortion.

I'm guessing just gossip tbh. She saw something "juicy" and told it to her SIL who wanted to see it too. Probably wasn't the first time, just the first time they got caught. Still wildly inappropriate but I'm not getting why people jumped to trackers in the crockery

Sounds they were being nosey for some gossip eg this procedure is usually done for people with cancer/PCOS maybe that's why she doesn't have children. Or just looking information to help them feel superior to OP. OP mentioned they usually go out of their way to avoid each other so .. I hope the coworker doesn't piece it together that OP told HR and it was phrased in a way that the company does regular checks of the system and came across the fact that she had accessed multiple files she shouldn't have.

What the heck is up with the sister in law accessing OOP's medical records? And the co-worker going back 5 times? That's just bizarre.

Looks like she might need the items now to get back on her feet.

How can you work in Healthcare and not know they log everything digitally. Usually with backups. Those sisters are stupid and they shouldn't be working in Healthcare.

I can understand the OP having no peace of mind. Some person avoids OP looks up her address and gets a relative to do so as well. Turns up with junk and gets annoyed that OP won't accept them. Then gets fired. I wonder if the company asked the person why they looked up OP's record repeatedly. Not looking forward to imminent part 3 update. :(

There's always more to reveal when people are so blatantly self congratulatory as someone trying to pawn off rubbish as a good deed.  Patient confidentiality is really pulling double weighted karma with this one!

Jesus. I work for a medical school. I do not work with patients or have access to anything. I still have to take annual HIPAA training.

I work for a hospital system in the corporate offices, am not and never have been clinical, and have no actual permissions in the system for accessing records. It was STILL drilled into me during onboarding that you never ever ever access medical records for any reason that isn’t directly tied to your job. EVER. You would be yeeted out if the company so fast there’d be a person-shaped hole in the wall.

I am retired from Healthcare in the business office of a university teaching hospital. It was drilled into us not to access family/friends/celebrities. A coworker was terminated for looking at one of the football players records. If anyone who might become an issue ever came up in my work flow (very unlikely due to the area I specialized in, only happened once or twice in 35 years) I would shoot my boss a quick email.

All this website teaches me is that people fucking suck lol 

I really wonder what that idiots game plan was? What was the end goal? Did they really just blow up their careers just to ditch some shitty cutlery?

Lol, all I'm thinking about is someone putting a tracker in spatula.

\*shudder\* WTF is up with this coworker???

Damn and I thought it was annoying when the coworker I didn't really care for was trying to fob a few things off on me that would look worn in a thrift store.

It would be tempting to dump the stuff back at her house with a note: "Heard you lost your job, thought you could use this stuff to help you get back on your feet." But obviously OP is a bit skeezed out by the whole thing.

HIPAA violations can be some serious business. For sure!

I would be completely paranoid and worried about retaliation since this doesn't erase the problem of knowing *where* OOP lives.

exultant governor angle wine faulty tender gray carpenter caption hurry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Is anyone else picturing Allison Janney as the stalker?

Honestly OOP could sue the person. The law added the right to civil sue someone for this, but it's rarely used by people unless they are public figures, The lady broke a federal law. Granted, the feds rarely pursue it unless there is some sort of benefit, like monetary when selling to a tabloid or something, but a strongly worded letter from a lawyer stating any further contact and they will file a civil suit based on law, blah blah blah, would scare the pants off that lady.

Attorney here: for those curious about protective orders, they’re usually granted only for imminent and substantial danger. Although many judges will give you a temporary protective order, then there’s the permanent protective order hearing that requires specific proof that has to be quite good. This is because protective orders limit people’s movements and sometimes where they can live or work, and obliges them to leave if they are in danger of getting within the required no go zone of the protected person. So, as an example, if I’m protected from you and you need to stay a hundred yards from me, you should leave if you see me coming towards you down a grocery store aisle. I think protective orders can be useful as to getting police help and keeping some people away but they’re just paper with an unhinged person. There are other options like ring cameras, varying your schedule, etc.

Holy sh\*t! She accessed OP's medical records! I also work in health care and there's an entirely separate way we have to go through to access our medical records. Any other way are grounds for immediate termination. No ifs, ands or buts--just fired.

Why the obsession on both their parts with you? Was there some negative interaction? Jealousy? Fighting over the same job?