Sometimes Planned Parenthood clinics break the law and sometimes they are just incredibly careless. During the U.S. House of Representatives investigation of Planned Parenthood’s alleged sale of fetal organs, it was discovered that certain PP clinics violated HIPAA laws on numerous occasions by sharing private patient information including patient names, birthdates, addresses, social security numbers, and medical information with employees from the tissue procurement company Stem Express. Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific, and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group clinics provided Stem Express ‘uncovered’ employees with information about abortions scheduled for the next day, allowed them access to individual patients’ medical files, allowed them access to the “patient terminal” inside the abortion clinic, and permitted them to interview patients about personal information. We will see whether Planned Parenthood is held accountable for these systemic violations of HIPAA laws. Here is a link to the letter sent to the Department of Health and Human Services notifying them of the violations and requesting full investigation.
Click to access 20160603HIPAA.pdf
Two weeks ago Planned Parenthood of the Heartland clinic in Dubuque, which had closed in April, finally notified 2506 patients that it had inadvertently left their medical records behind at the building it had sold. In a press release it informed patients that it “has secured the data and has taken every possible measure to ensure that patient confidentiality is protected” by which it apparently meant leaving the records in copy paper boxes in an unlocked closet, failing to retrieve the records for 10 days after being notified by the realtor, and waiting two months before informing the patients. Patients were sent letters in July stating that the privacy of the following information may have been compromised: patients’ full name, date of birth, mailing address, insurance information, social security number, medical record number, diagnosis, treatment, and lab results. A Planned Parenthood spokesperson also stated that, “In anyone’s institutional memory, we cannot remember seeing a breach of this scale in decades at Planned Parenthood of the Heartland,” which makes it appear that this is not the only one, just the biggest.
Whatever the reasons Planned Parenthood has violated the patient confidentiality of so many patients, my conclusion is the same as the one I arrived at after investigating Planned Parenthood’s numerous other violations – Planned Parenthood clinics are not a reasonable choice for healthcare. Nobody should utilize their services or let friends or family go there if they have any other options.
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