Here’s Who Can Ask for Your Vaccination Status

Majorie Taylor Greene isn’t actually identified for being reserved. The far-right Georgia rep hasn’t been afraid to fearlessly assist Nancy Pelosi’s theoretical execution, blame California’s wildfires on Jewish Space Lasers, or ask whether or not a college capturing was really an elaborately staged inside job. No subject is just too racist, too homophobic, or too taboo to be commented on—aside from one: whether or not she’s been vaccinated.

That query “is a violation of my HIPAA rights,” she advised a reporter throughout a Tuesday press convention held within the wake of her newest Twitter suspension.

According to Twitter, Greene was hit with the 12-hour moratorium after she used the platform to propagate misinformation surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, which she most not too long ago known as a part of some nebulous “human experiment.” Sure, most would agree with overwhelming evidence that means getting jabbed is a simple technique to fight future infections, however Greene isn’t most individuals. She isn’t going to let the Biden administration bully her oldest (and most at-risk) constituents into getting vaccinated, and he or she isn’t going to let some Mainstream Media outlet bully her into disclosing her vax standing—particularly not when she had a federal privateness regulation on her aspect.

“You see with HIPAA rights, we don’t have to reveal our medical records and that also involves our vaccine records,” she mentioned, with the boldness of somebody who’s invoked that line at least a dozen occasions when speaking to the press. She additionally couldn’t be extra improper.

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“HIPAA was never a general health privacy rule,” mentioned Kirk Nahra, a privateness and cybersecurity lawyer based mostly out of Washington DC. Last month, Nahra revealed a blog post addressed to the sudden wave of posters and pundits invoking the regulation in all of the improper methods—and never even spelling it appropriately.

Despite kinda sounding just like the phrase “hippo,” when mentioned aloud, the acronym has all the time been HIPAA (with one “p,” two “a’s”), which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The authentic objective for the regulation, per Nahra, was portability: the “ability to take your health insurance with you when you switched jobs,” he defined. Congress wouldn’t get round to tacking on a set of privateness requirements years later with the rollout of the Privacy Rule in 2003—however even then, these privateness statutes have been all the time meant to use to a selected set of figures dealing with a selected form of information for a selected set of functions. Period.

“HIPAA was never a general health privacy rule,” Nahra went on. “It mainly regulates how doctors, hospitals, and health insurers can use and disclose patient information. If you aren’t one of those or working on behalf of one of those the rules probably have zero impact on you.”

As you may anticipate from a 169-page slab of privateness regulation that’s been revised and remolded seemingly each time a brand new president steps into office, Greene isn’t the one one who’s turned HIPAA right into a shorthand for all issues well being and privateness. As far again as 2013, some congress members expressed considerations that medical doctors throughout the nation have been broadly misconstruing what sort of information they have been allowed to share with out affected person consent. They have been proper; since then, we’ve seen dozens of instances of so-called “covered entities,” like doctors and health insurers being sued after they disclosed extra about sufferers than the regulation allowed. These are the kinds of events topic to HIPAA’s privateness requirements, together with so-called medical “clearinghouses” that physicians use when sending e-claims to insurance coverage carriers.

In different phrases, you’re free to ask any elected official something about their vaccination standing—they usually’re free to reply nonetheless they need. That’s not “violating HIPAA,” that’s simply “having a conversation.”

You’re additionally allowed to (politely!) ask your mates, neighbors, potential hookups, or whoever else about their vax standing, they usually’re free to (politely!) decline. In an analogous vein, bars, gyms, diners—or any enterprise that isn’t primarily staffed by individuals dealing with some kind of e-record concerning your well being—are free to ask the identical. There are some nuances relying on the place you reside; there are greater than a dozen states which have put some sort of restriction on requiring vaccination proof typically, whereas Texas, Montana, and Florida specifically bar personal companies from asking for that data.

Similar guidelines apply to the personal companies you may work for. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission put out its own notice final December detailing the kinds of questions employers can ask their workers with out falling afoul of HIPAA. In quick, your boss is free to ask should you’ve examined constructive for COVID-19 or your vaccination standing—they usually’re additionally free to store that information internally, so long as it’s stored in a confidential location that’s separate from different personnel recordsdata. And you’re free to decline.

Things get a bit trickier if that employer begins probing into sure specifics, like why you won’t have gotten vaccinated, or why you won’t be carrying a masks within the workplace—however not due to HIPAA. In this case, it opens the door for an employer to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act since these questions open the door to potential discrimination towards staff who won’t have gotten the jab for medical or non secular causes. Under the ADA, probably the most an employer is allowed to do is “bar an employee from physical presence in the workplace.”

“Think of HIPAA as who, not what,” Nahra mentioned. “If your employer has health information because you need medical leave, it’s not under HIPAA. But the doctor who diagnosed you for the same thing had to follow [that law].”

In different phrases, you possibly can’t ask Majorie Taylor Greene’s physician for her full medical historical past. But you’re free to ask her any query you need.