<p>My S suffered a minor injury and had to go the health center. Because of the HIPAA law, the health center couldn’t discuss his medical condition with me. You may want to encourage your student to sign a release form. My S did it when he was at the health center waiting to be treated. </p>
<p>BTW, in Alabama, parents can’t get get medical information if the child is older than 14. I have no idea what the age is in other states, but I assumed that if the child was a minor, parents could get the information.</p>
<p>^^^Hope your son is doing well now!</p>
<p>Thanks! It wasn’t a big deal but he was encouraged to go to the health center to get it checked out. It was a little disconcerting though to get a request for the insurance card and then not being able to get any information from the health center. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my S but sometimes kids downplay the severity of things not to worry parents.</p>
<p>Glad to hear it wasn’t a big deal, Rip. It’s frustrating when they’ll let you pay but not tell you what’s going on (whether it’s health care costs or tuition), but I guess the law’s the law.</p>
<p>Fortunately it wasn’t serious but if it were, it would have been horrible to be 1000 miles away and not be able to communicate with health care providers about his condition or treatment.</p>
<p>Riprorin: glad to hear all is well.</p>
<p>Parents might not want to think about this but having a health care proxy for their sons/daughters is a good idea for those situations none of us want to think about. The proxy can be faxed to a doctor or medical facility, so you can make decisions until you can be " there". Also a good idea is to have an ICE phone number programmed into their cell phone. ICE is for in case of emergency. See below copied from Wikipedia:</p>
<p>In case of emergency (ICE) is a program that enables first responders, such as paramedics, firefighters, and police officers, as well as hospital personnel, to contact the next of kin of the owner of a mobile phone to obtain important medical or support information (the phone must be unlocked and working). The phone entry (or entries) should supplement or complement written (such as wallet, bracelet, or necklace) information or indicators. The programme was conceived in the mid-2000s and promoted by British paramedic Bob Brotchie in May 2005.[1] It encourages people to enter emergency contacts in their mobile phone address book under the name “ICE”. Alternatively, a person can list multiple emergency contacts as “ICE1”, “ICE2”, etc. The popularity of the program has spread across Europe and Australia, and it has started to grow into North America.[2]</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear everything worked out. There are some pretty sound reasons why parents can’t see medical records of those aged 14+ without the patient’s permission, though many health care professionals will provide necessary information to parents in a true emergency. I really encourage students to have documents drawn up regarding who will make medical decisions for them if they are incapable, noting that some health care professionals have a written policy where they are legally allowed to disregard certain health care directives, particularly DNRs.</p>
<p>As for signing HIPAA and academic record access waivers, it’s really something that should be decided on a case by case basis. For instance, one may choose to have a waiver for their dental and vision procedures, but not for their family doctor. They can also choose to pay cash for certain procedures to avoid having them show up on insurance records.</p>