Is a doctor's office permitted to share your financial information with your employer?

I recently got into some financial trouble and bounced a check to an optometrist. The person from the doctor's office left a message on my boss's voicemail, as well as talked about it to another colleague at my work, prompting a very scary call from an HR rep. Is this legal? Does HIPAA cover financial privacy?|||no, they can collect a debt.|||well really i cant see a problem. as silly as it sounds what you did was write a bad check, i know you didn't mean to stuff happens. but this worries people and some places can take money out of your pay check before it gets to your hands and children.





it sucks but on the plus side a lot of states and countries are against this. check with your state you may have a case... however you will get nailed for the bad check. in some places when you write a bad check and are sued you could be order to pay up to Triple the amount. just to teach you a lesson.





some people can even argue that you meant to write the check as bad and can be almost charged as if it was a fraudulent(sp) check because you as they might argue had no intention to pay the bill to begin with.





call a local lawyer or a law enforcement bank or somebody where they will know the rules for your state or whatever|||No Hipaa does not cover financial issues. However, that optometrist still had no right to contact your employer regarding the bounced check. You have every right to be upset. Check your state statutes for rights of collection. I suspect your optometrist is in the wrong.





The only way an employer can be contacted is through garnishment procedures...and the optomitrist himself can not do this.|||HIPAA does not cover writing a bad check to your optometrist. If your optometrist tried calling you and you didn't answer or return their calls, they can continue to try to collect. You can get huffy that they called your employer, or you can call them work out arrangements to cover the check and be glad they didn't turn it over to the local DA for prosecution.





The next person to contact your employer would be the DA's office or a police officer with a warrant, then how embarrassed would you be?