St. Joseph's Hospital in Dickinson, North Dakota makes a practice of sharing patient names and phone numbers with a Maryland-based survey company, and the hospital says it is legal under HIPAA--and that failing to do so may result in a loss of federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, reports the Dickinson Press. St. Joseph's says patient surveys are too expensive to conduct on its own. Paulette Thomas, in-house council for St. Joseph's parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives, told the paper, "It is a permissible use of their information [under HIPAA] in order to improve the quality of care that is delivered to patients."
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