He's a pharmacist and I'm becoming an RN. We discuss patient care procedures all the time, and I always ask, "Ok, when does X violate HIPAA?" Because I can be a talker, so starting my profession with a foundation on when I can't talk is always a good idea. We were having a long conversation the other day about an early adolescent trying to access PEP (post-exposure HIV medication) and whether or not reporting procedures come into play given the age. Halfway through, I was like, "Should we be talking about this?" (It was fine, because he gave no identifying information).
It's actually interesting to watch him work (we both work from home). Even though he's a higher up, his surface level interaction with patient things includes very, very little personal information about the patient. If he wants to know who a patient actually is because it's important, he has to go through several different channels.
He said this is going to be a mess on several levels in various red states. Fortunately, we're in California so hopefully it will be minimum for him. But how doctors, pharmacists, and other health professions get caught in legal and bureaucratic webs is going to have a chilling effect on how and when they choose to administer care.
It isn't just about abortion. It's all the ripples that are going to roar through the healthcare system. And what happens in one state isn't going to leave another state unaffected. Everyone in the profession, even in the bluest of states, is going to have to grapple with all this in some form.
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