conversation snippet

[cellio]

This week we finally got some routine legal documents in order. Snippet from today's review meeting:

Me: Just out of curiosity, this place in the boilerplate where you cite [a particular act], don't you have the name wrong? It doesn't really matter, I don't think, because this is in a section heading and you have it right down in the legally-binding paragraphs below, but just checking...?

Lawyer: I never noticed that bug in our template before.

Me: My work here is done. :-)

My professional training follows me everywhere, I tell you!

(Medical power-of-attorney, and it's HIPAA, not HIPPA.)

Comments

[siderea]

You would not believe how often I find that one. Maybe if we pronounced it "hip-AY-AH".

[cellio]

Yeah, I actually thought it was HIPPA for a while (which I think means I saw it that way on a form some doctor's office had me sign), until I wondered what that actually stood for and looked it up. In this case, the full name was given in the body of the document, and it was just that bold, all-caps, larger-print section heading that had it wrong. But that kind of jumped out at me.

It's an unfortunate name. People want to pronounce longer abbreviations, not spell them out, and I don't know that folks will willingly add a syllable.

[geekosaur]

I prefer to stress and stretch the final syllable, "hip-AAAAAH".

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

But if you have an obvious disability and are in the South (among some other parts of the U.S.A.), it's "don't mean ****." They are allowed to gossip about you--and give out your name, address, and phone number--all they want.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

We're in Atlanta, and part of my husband's job is enforcing HIPAA compliance at Emory University's med school ... and yet the last post in my own journal had to do with a really nasty HIPAA violation committed by one of my son's healthcare providers. I am less than pleased.

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

If you are Blind, people will violate HIPAA and FERPA all they like, and say, "But I was only trying to help! I meant well!" And when you complain to their supervisors? The same thing.

If they want to go to your Church, they will go to your Church, not your Medical Practice or your School! Yet, the Rural and Semi-Rural South still believes this is acceptable practice.

So glad we left.

[cellio]

Yeah, sadly, I believe you. :-(

The HIPAA stuff we were doing was to grant permission lest important medical records be withheld from the person with power of attorney to make decisions. I already had a durable power of attorney and living will, but the document predated HIPAA.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

That typo is extremely common. I can live with it, though, because this Act actually has a descriptive name (Health Information Portability and Accessibility Act, IIRC) rather than one of those trendy forced brand-names like the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, or the No Child Left Behind Act, or the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).

[cellio]

I don't particularly mind it; I just wanted to make sure the typo would have no detrimental effect in a legal document. Which I didn't think it would, but safer to ask than assume, because case law is not for the novice to comprehend. :-) (Nor, probably, statutory law, but this non-expert perceives case law to be even more incomprehensible.)