DH’s mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia 3+ years ago. When we visited about 2.5 years ago, she invited us to accompany her to her appointment with her neurologist, and while there she signed a HIPPA form authorizing the doctor’s office to release her healthcare information to DH, DH’s brother, and me upon request.
Fast forward to this week. We are planning a trip to see her soon, and thought it would be a good idea to check in with her doc’s office to hear his perspective on how her disease is progressing and what we can expect. Imagine our surprise when they told us they were no longer authorized to discuss her situation with us.
We haven’t had a falling out with her and have no idea why we are no longer authorized. Guessing that she decided she didn’t need us monitoring her health as she’s always been very independent. However we live 2,500 miles away and it was really helpful to be able to talk with her doctor about her.
If this were your mom or dad, would you mention this to them and ask about it, or would you just let it go? She may not even remember removing our authorization. We don’t know whether the office requires periodic updating of the HIPPA forms and that is how this happened, or if she proactively decided to take us off.
DH is going to ask his brother if he knows anything about this, but he hasn’t been very involved in caring for her even though he is local. He may not have even known he was ever authorized to get info from her doctor, as he isn’t one to go to the doctor himself and has never taken her diagnosis seriously.
Fast forward to this week. We are planning a trip to see her soon, and thought it would be a good idea to check in with her doc’s office to hear his perspective on how her disease is progressing and what we can expect. Imagine our surprise when they told us they were no longer authorized to discuss her situation with us.
We haven’t had a falling out with her and have no idea why we are no longer authorized. Guessing that she decided she didn’t need us monitoring her health as she’s always been very independent. However we live 2,500 miles away and it was really helpful to be able to talk with her doctor about her.
If this were your mom or dad, would you mention this to them and ask about it, or would you just let it go? She may not even remember removing our authorization. We don’t know whether the office requires periodic updating of the HIPPA forms and that is how this happened, or if she proactively decided to take us off.
DH is going to ask his brother if he knows anything about this, but he hasn’t been very involved in caring for her even though he is local. He may not have even known he was ever authorized to get info from her doctor, as he isn’t one to go to the doctor himself and has never taken her diagnosis seriously.