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Is This A Breach Of Hipaa/patient Privacy Rules?

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location: NC, USA

Hi all, just hoping for a quick sanity check over something that I recently noticed with respect to my psychiatrist.

Recently I noticed that my psychiatrist's office had sent out some general information over email, but they were sending it as a large group email instead of BCCs or individualized private emails. What I mean is that I can see all of the other patients' names and emails, sometimes profile pictures, and they can see mine.

It's not like there's a bunch of detailed health information in the emails or anything, but I was just thinking about it and since mental health care can be very sensitive/private to some people, I figured perhaps even just knowing that a specific person is receiving psychiatric care at all might constitute a breach of some sort.

To be clear, I personally don't care, I'm only asking because I believe it's one of his office assistants sending these emails and I was thinking I might bring it to his attention next time I see him. I've seen him for several years and we have a pretty easy going/friendly relationship - I don't have any complicated or touchy psychiatric issues, I just see him every few months for refills on the same old medications - I'd only be mentioning it in a "hey, just a headsup, you should be careful about this.." sort of way.

submitted by /u/WNCSU
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