HIPPA is tricky. Futhermore pediatricians are manditory reporters for a whole host of things. Being a manditory reporter is a horrible place to be, my wife lost a lot of sleep over such issues over the years. Just remember, what the pediatricain reports isn't really the problem, what the courts and LE community does with that information is.
Pediatricians grilling kids about parents owning guns?!
- Thread starter SundownRider
- Start date
Yes, I know. My wife is a senior executive in the healthcare industry and has to deal with it all the time. That's why I posed it as a question.
And, if I understand it correctly, those involve screening for some sort of illegal activity that directly effects the welfare of the child, or for certain classes of communicable diseases. Which this wasn't. This had nothing to do with anything like child abuse or pedophilia, which is the crux of those exceptions to the medical privacy laws that don't involve communicable disease. It wasn't anything like "Is Mommy a prostitute?", or "Is Daddy a dope dealer?", since in those cases the child is potentially being put in a criminal environment, in harm's way. Simple gun ownership doesn't fit the "stink test" of directly hazarding the child any more than having a swimming pool does.
I would disagree with that. It fails the "Need To Know" test. The doctor may need to know about the guns in order to do his job, that is true. But as long as it is legal, or appears legal, that's as far as it goes. The .gov has NO business even receiving reports on who has and does not have guns, never mind that there are children involved, and especially when such information is either assumed to be confidential or was collected about the gun owner without his (or her) knowledge. The .gov does NOT need to know that information, much less have anything to do with the use of the information. It is "None Of Their Effin' Business".
Unregistered
Moderator
I am curious, to those of you who claim pediatricians are filing reports to police regarding gun ownership:
What kind of report do you think they are filing?
Its not against the law to own a gun!
What kind of report do you think they are filing?
Its not against the law to own a gun!
I noticed the Doctor in the post was a California Doctor.
The only time I was asked about guns was by a neurosurgeon wanting something to carry for self defense after an attempted mugging.
The Doc is a neurosurgeon and also likes bronc riding. He had had a very crappy day and was coming out of the church and a guy attempted to rob him with some kind of pistol. He said he just looked the guy in the eyes and said,"I have had a very bad day you don't want to do that". The guy just dropped his shoulders and walked off.
Must had that Dirty Harry look. Thats why he asked for a recommendation.
If a Doctor ever asked me that....
my first question would be:
1. Have you ever had unprotected sex
2. have you been tested for HIV
3. have you ever been addicted to drugs or alcohol
4. haw many malpractice complaints have you had
I think he would get the idea quick.
The only time I was asked about guns was by a neurosurgeon wanting something to carry for self defense after an attempted mugging.
The Doc is a neurosurgeon and also likes bronc riding. He had had a very crappy day and was coming out of the church and a guy attempted to rob him with some kind of pistol. He said he just looked the guy in the eyes and said,"I have had a very bad day you don't want to do that". The guy just dropped his shoulders and walked off.
Must had that Dirty Harry look. Thats why he asked for a recommendation.If a Doctor ever asked me that....
my first question would be:
1. Have you ever had unprotected sex
2. have you been tested for HIV
3. have you ever been addicted to drugs or alcohol
4. haw many malpractice complaints have you had
I think he would get the idea quick.
Just want to point out that there is no way to determine whether the facts cited in the article published by the Boston Herald are in fact true and accurate. You may want to keep this in mind before the debate gets too rancorous about whether or not police reports are filed - the media often gets it wrong.
AlabamaFamilyMan
New member
Time to stop going to the doctor!
So, if a doctor tries to tell me that a gun in the home is 47 times more likely to hurt me or mine, and from justice dept statistics, medical error is about 3.5 times more likely to kill me than a gun, that must mean ...
going to the doctor is 164 times more likely to kill me!
"I suppose this is what I get for letting rednecks play with antimatter; they
just don't know when to say 'Okay, that's 'nough!' Instead, it's always
'Hey, y'all! Watch this!'"
-- John Ringo, 'When the Devil Dances', ch.27 --
So, if a doctor tries to tell me that a gun in the home is 47 times more likely to hurt me or mine, and from justice dept statistics, medical error is about 3.5 times more likely to kill me than a gun, that must mean ...
going to the doctor is 164 times more likely to kill me!
"I suppose this is what I get for letting rednecks play with antimatter; they
just don't know when to say 'Okay, that's 'nough!' Instead, it's always
'Hey, y'all! Watch this!'"
-- John Ringo, 'When the Devil Dances', ch.27 --
FirstFreedom
Moderator
I think Mr. James has a good point here - if this was REALLY about the health & safety of the children, then the questioning should be commensurate with the instrumentalities that cause the most harm. For every question about gun storage, surely they must also ask 2 questions about 5 gallon buckets, 5 questions about backyard swimming pools, and 40-50 questions on who the children ride in cars with, the driving records of those people, the criminal history of those people, the drug & alcohol use of those people, and the nature and extent of child safety seats and whether they are properly installed and used each time.
Do they?
Doctors
I dont know what the referance to Boston Herald was but that paper is almost as bad as the Globe.and I do know some Doctors in Mass do ask about gun ownership and it is not for health reasons.if your stupid enough to answer them you deserve whatever happens.every thing you tell the doctor is recorded and transcribed.if a doc asked that question it was because he/she was brain washed by the antigun ama.I would change doctors.
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I dont know what the referance to Boston Herald was but that paper is almost as bad as the Globe.and I do know some Doctors in Mass do ask about gun ownership and it is not for health reasons.if your stupid enough to answer them you deserve whatever happens.every thing you tell the doctor is recorded and transcribed.if a doc asked that question it was because he/she was brain washed by the antigun ama.I would change doctors.
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---fisherman66
New member
Maybe, but HIPAA is pretty straightforward from my experience.
They not only ask about such things many hand out dozens of fliers and poison control magnets for the fridge and all other manner of safety related stuff. That's not to say that some pediatricians don't go overboard on the gun issue, I'm sure that such pediatricians do exist, just don't jump to some paranoid conclusion based on little evidence.
Being polite and making a non comital statement about whether one does or does not own specific items of value is appropriate. Its akin to asking were you keep your valuables
and how they are secured. Should you trust your doctor ? Yes you should be able to. Can you trust your doctor ? Who knows. There are specific conditions that are not protected under HIPA child safety may or may not be defined in your area as one of those exceptions. That would be hard for the layman to know about with out extensive research into HIPA regulations Hospitals have attornies and HIPA "experts" who review these particulars daily. And they still have violations. Good luck.
and how they are secured. Should you trust your doctor ? Yes you should be able to. Can you trust your doctor ? Who knows. There are specific conditions that are not protected under HIPA child safety may or may not be defined in your area as one of those exceptions. That would be hard for the layman to know about with out extensive research into HIPA regulations Hospitals have attornies and HIPA "experts" who review these particulars daily. And they still have violations. Good luck.
I’ll go along with FirstFreedom on this one. Our son was diagnosed as bi-polar 2 when he was 16. They asked about firearms in our home as well they should have. My response that they were locked in an 800 pound safe ended this line of the conversation. However, they asked a host of questions regarding a wide variety of potentially dangerous things in and around the house. It wasn’t an obvious anti-gun fishing expedition.