IANAL but I'm responsible for HIPAA compliance in my startup:
Assuming this is a standard private practice, this office has several violations of 45 CFR §164.520(a)(b)(c), assuming that he was also not provided this privacy statement within 30 days with a reason for why it was not provided on the first visit.
This makes them liable for $50,000 in fines per failure to a max of $1.5 mm (this would be a clear cut case of reckless indifference.) The DHHS OCR is always looking for some head to serve on a platter to justify themselves as well.
His amendment to the form is damning evidence and that receptionist should be fired, there is no excuse for basic HIPAA noncompliance in 2011 (8 years after the fact).
Edit: What some people don't seem to understand is that signing the privacy practices notice (the form in question here) does not mean you agree to the terms and conditions outlined. You only sign that you have received them. Additionally, whether you sign the form or not it applies to you, and whatever that form states HIPAA clearly outlines what powers the covered entity (the doctor in this case) has over your information.
So are you saying that in order to comply, the office needs to furnish every patient with a 3000 page binder of privacy practices and that systematic failure to do so should mean over a million dollars in fines? I really hope I'm misunderstanding something because this seems insane.
The only reason to believe the privacy statement is 3,000 pages long is because the receptionist said it was, and given the rest of her statements there's little reason to believe she knew what she was talking about. She may have just made up a large number to try and scare him off from inquiring further.
I've been given privacy statements from my doctors' offices in the past, and they've never been more than a couple of pages.
Notices of privacy practices for practices are a boilerplate form that shouldn't be more than 10 pages long. Whatever they write is meaningless if it gives them more power than the law does, most places just use the AMA or state agency recommended forms.
The law actually states what needs/should be written.
Here is an example [doc file]: www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/hipaa/privacy-practices.doc
That said, places with their own websites need only upload the form and tell patients it is able to be viewed at at whatever link and have the binder accessible in the office for viewing.
Uploading to dropbox/filesharing without a website is not a valid option.
I've worked in healthcare for many years and I am extremely confident that this is not true, that the document is likely a more manageable three-to-five pages and at worst ten-or-so. I'm sure the receptionist said this in order to deter him from wanting to see the actual document that she clearly didn't have.
No. They need to hire professional staff who can handle a routine customer request.
A HIPPA privacy practices document is 4-5 pages at maximum. Perhaps all of the compliance materials for the practice would fill a binder, but not this particular document.
Has anyone ever seen a binder that could encompass 3,000 pages? The Staples website seems to imply that 1,300 is the max for binders they carry: do physicians have to buy office products from specialty vendors? (I guess if sheets were printed on both sides Staples could get to 2,600 but have you ever seen double-sided materials at a physician's office?) I do hope that secretaries are donning the appropriate back support garments before attempting to bring this binder out to an interested patient.
You aren't misunderstanding anything. Hospital care in the U.S. is fucking ridiculous for several reasons on a multitude of fronts, this is just one of them.
And the parent comment thinks its reasonable because their livelihood depends on this insane bureaucracy.
LETS TAKE ALL THE WORST PARTS OF FREE MARKET MEDICINE AND THE WORST PARTS OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AND PUT IT TOGETHER AND CALL IT THE U.S. HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
While I doubt the policy was anywhere near 3000 pages, this kind of thing is indeed ridiculous. Reading the document means very little in regards to understanding what it says, much less what it means in regards to court doctrine. I also insist on reading the privacy policy at doctors offices. Once, a receptionist gave me a great deal of grief, then finally handed me their only printed copy. It was just one two-sided page, but it was ragged, creased and stained. Classy.
What's less pointless and far more upsetting is the practice of pharmacies instructing customers to sign/check the "I do not wish to have a consultation" area on forms when buying prescription medicine. That has happened to me at a number of pharmacies in NYC. When I ignore their instructions and start signing the area that requests a consultation they sternly tell me I'm signing in the wrong place. Then there's a big sigh when I say I actually want to talk to the pharmacist. Inexcusable and disgusting.
I've seen that "I do not wish to have a consultation" box countless times, but I've never questioned why it's there. What happens if you request the consultation? My understanding has always been that pharmacies are drug dispensaries with very little to offer in the way of medical consultations, as that's the role of the doctor who prescribed the drugs. I'm not even sure what they would consult with you about.
Actual pharmacists are very knowledgeable about the drugs that they give out, in some cases more so than the doctors prescribing them (as many doctors will readily tell you). Doctors in hospitals frequently consult the hospital's pharmacists with questions about particular things (like drug interactions).
Yes, it's entirely normal in Germany to just walk in and consult a pharmacist about minor problems. They're generally quite friendly and not too busy, even in the middle of Berlin.
This used to be common in the US as well, but no longer. This is something that seems to have disappeared as the larger chain stores have take over the field.
When I was in the US, I had no issues with consulting with pharmacists at the Fred Meyer's Pharmacy nor at Walgreen's. No one encouraged me to not have a consultation, and they were very professional.
Even at chain stores in the US, one of the people behind the counter is a pharmacist who went to grad school for five years studying this stuff. (The person actually giving you your medication may only be a pharmacy tech, but they have to have a pharmacist behind the counter whenever they're open.)
Yes. The pharmacist almost certainly knows much more about drugs in general than a doctor does. The doctor is familiar with the drugs he prescribes, sure, but may not be at all familiar with the drugs that your other doctor prescribed. That is, your dermatologist knows all about dermatology drugs, but may not know much about your blood pressure or antidepressant medicine (in particular, that one of those drugs has a bad interaction with the dermatology medicine he's prescribing).
That's also why it's important to always go to the same pharmacy if you can. If you switch to a new one, make sure to switch all your prescriptions at the same time.
Pharmacists are well-versed on drug interactions and side effects. Although doctors should provide an exhaustive list of side-effects and special instructions, they often don't. Plus, even when they do, the bewildered patient can easily forget. As for the little labels that say "don't drive while using this!" it never hurts for a bit of reinforcement and calling it to their attention.
My pharmacy sometimes goes out of their way to offer me a consultation or indicate they are available if I have any questions. I usually respond that I've been taking the same medication for my entire adult life and I think I have the hang of it.
Pharmacists are good for info on interactions, possible side effects, clarification on when/how to take, what to do if you miss a dose, etc. My family has about two dozen prescriptions all told and they can be very helpful.
Pharmacists know a lot about drugs and all sorts of other things.
If you have chronic conditions that require medication from a specialist, they are usually the folks who prevent you from having a harmful interaction when your GP or some other doc prescribes you something without asking or thinking.
The box is there because the NYC pharmacy is busy, and checking the box helps the to avoid being sued.
Wow. Our grocery store pharmacy (Wegmans) frequently requests that I speak to a pharmacist before leaving (resulting in a few "oh, she's had this before w/o issues, I'm good, thanks!"). They're quite happy to do it.
For whatever it's worth, at the local Kroger pharmacy, they've always asked if I have any questions, and only tell me to check "declined consultation" after I said no.
To get rid of this, I recommend the follows - a mandatory "minimum reading period" given for any document, that prevents it from being turned in, calculated from the average HS graduate reading speed.
Also, before any meetings regarding revisions of said document, everyone involved in revising the document must A: be present, and B: serially, read a copy of the document, invoking the reading penalty multiple times over.
Optionally, to avoid this process, the document can be totally scrapped and replaced with an entirely new document, provided the new document is limited to 1/10th the reading length.
This would greatly reduce the amount of stupid long documents, and I see no downside.
You'd have to start by simplifying the legal code. Part of the reason that these long legal documents are necessary is the huge variety of theories of liability that companies are exposed to. If you want to avoid long disclaimers, you also have to remove the things companies need to disclaim to avoid huge legal expenses.
Everyone likes to blame the lawyers, but is the companies and non-company organizations that lobby for complicated laws to be made, and who employ lawyers to sue each other.
Unfortunately the legal is perfectly clear... to lawyers. I've thought that it would be nice to simplify things, but it already is simple to the people for whom it matters (i.e. lawyers and judges). It would be kind of like trying to make a scheduler clear and obvious to someone who isn't a kernel developer, or at least very technical. You could get the basics across, but there'd be plenty of corner cases you'd miss.
As a programming analogy, you could theoretically: 'refactor' contracts (simplify them) but it would create numerous 'bugs' (loopholes). To fix that you have to apply hard-coded bugfixes because the 'modules/classes' (laws) you are 'importing' (citing) are not open-source (so you can't fix them yourself) and you cannot create more to supplement exising ones in an elegant way.
To quote what a lawyer acquaintance recently mentioned: if I'm an organization and someone signs my contract and then sues me, any vagueness in the contract will come back to fuck _me_ in the ass.
Our society has decided as a whole to allow certain people to waste everyone else's time, with no penalties. We need some practical way to implement those penalties.
> This would greatly reduce the amount of stupid long documents, and I see no downside.
But it wouldn't reduce the number of documents that are long because they are documenting something very complex.
The privacy statement may be 3,000 pages because the author(s) were (collectively) incompetent, or because medical privacy is a highly complex field that has a lot of gotchas, and therefore requires a lot of legal logic to cover it all.
Yeah, that won't work either and I'll tell you how I know.
Anecdote 1:
Almost everyone who uses a computer has encountered a EULA that one must click-through. We all ignore it and click "OK" or "I Agree" anyways, right?
Recently, I've encountered a few that won't let you proceed until you really have "read" it. They "enforce" that by not letting you click-through until you've scrolled down to the bottom of the textbox. The first time I encountered this it took a split-second to figure out, I hit Ctrl-End, and <TAB>'d over to "OK".
I thought about for a minute then hit "Back" a couple of times. I handed the laptop over to Stephanie, who was sitting next to me on the couch. "Hey, install this real quick for me while I run to the bathroom", I told her.
When I came back a moment later she says, "That was weird." "What?" "I had to click the scroll thing on the license all the way to the bottom before it would let me install." "That is weird," I said. "What'd the license say?"
She gave me a "are-you-serious?-like-i-actually-read-that" look and my experiment was complete. She's certainly more technical than most people but I'd wager that my mother (who certainly isn't) would also quickly figure out to simply scroll to the bottom to bypass it without actually having to read it.
Anecdote 2:
Several years ago, my then-fiancée, was required to take a four-hour online "driver education" course because she had received greater than "x" citations in "y" time.
For each section, you had to read a wall of text and then answer several questions afterwards. You were required to spend "x" amount of time reading it -- you couldn't proceed to the questions until that time had passed.
Lindsey just sat on the couch watching episodes of one of her shows on the DVR and every few minutes she'd look over at her laptop, click to the next page, and answer the questions. She didn't bother reading any of the text and once she got to the next section, she'd sit the laptop back down and go back to watching her show. At the next convenient break in her show, she'd click "Proceed" and answer the questions. Rinse and repeat.
Anecdote 3:
I worked at a .edu for several years and also taught many courses during my time there. On a few occasions, in the middle of a random block of text in a paper that I would hand out for the students to read and answer a few questions over, I would insert something like "draw a peace sign next to your name for 10 bonus points".
What I was interested in is whether they were actually reading the paper or simply jumping straight to the questions, reading the question and then quickly skimming the paper to try to find the answers. I didn't keep statistics but I'd say that perhaps 10-15% of the students would get the bonus points on a good day.
---
Now all of these are anecdotal, sure, but I think it illustrates quite well that us humans are quite capable of finding ways around whatever roadblocks stand in the way of whatever we want. In recent years, it seems that humans in general have become more obsessed with instant gratification (I am certainly guilty of this) and/or we've just become lazy.
When I was in school, I did not want to spend an hour reading a paper when I could instead jump straight to the questions, skim over the paper in search of the answers, and be done in 10 minutes either.
In short, I don't think there is any foolproof way of completely ensuring that someone reads a document. Don't underestimate fools. =)
This is also useful to read the previous discussion and to see whether it has been debunked or there is some additional information. I prefer more information. My favorite format is:
I don't think I've ever submitted anything here but I quite like that format. I wish others would follow it and I certainly will if I ever "repost" any content. Thanks.
It's much more than saying "repost" politely. Just saying "repost" provides practically nothing to the conversation. It's more of a waste of resources than it is useful. However, providing a link to previous conversation is extremely useful. Especially a conversation with so many comments.
I do the same thing that RMS did on many (but not all) occasions and it really annoys the hell out of people.
A year or two ago, I rented one of those storage units to put a bunch of stuff in (although really I should probably just get rid of it). The guy hands me a copy of a "rental agreement" to sign that's several pages long (printed on both sides) and says, "Just flip to the back page and sign there at the bottom."
Having never rented one of these units before, I was completely ignorant as to the "rules" or what might even be included in such an agreement so I really did want to read it (whereas most of us can probably guess 98% of what the standard HIPAA/Privacy Policy says).
When I get to the bottom of the front of the first page, I look up and the guy is clearly annoyed (despite the fact that he didn't appear to be doing anything important when I walked in -- he was on Facebook on his computer).
I apologized to him and explained, saying, "I'm sorry, I've never rented one of these before so I really don't know what's allowed and I want to make sure I don't do anything wrong." At the time I was genuinely curious as to what could or couldn't be stored in the unit. Could I keep some really old guns in there? Maybe I could park my motorcycle in it during the wintertime and free up some space in my garage?
I asked him if he had a FAX machine in his office and he said that he did. "How about if I take this with me so I can read it at home and then I'll sign the back page and FAX it to you?" I asked, thinking that he'd be happy that he didn't have to sit impatiently and watch me for the next 20 minutes as I finished reading the document.
"Okay, that'll work." I slid the document back over to him and asked him to write the FAX number on it. I gave him my credit card to cover the initial payment, he ran it and I walked out.
I actually did sit and read the whole document when I got home but I didn't really like that I was required to give them 90 days notice prior to terminating the agreement (30 days would be more reasonable, IMO). If I decided today that I was going to move everything out of the unit tomorrow, I'd still have to pay for the next three months (at $46 USD per month) even though I wasn't using it any longer.
I never signed the document and I never FAX'd it back. I'm sure the guy probably forgot all about it before I even made it home and I haven't been contacted by the company since -- regarding the document or anything else. Every month they charge my credit card $46 and life goes on.
I'll be moving everything out of there in a few weeks. When I do, I fully intend to walk into the office, hand them the key, and point out that I never signed the document and will fight any attempts to charge me the next three months worth of rent.
Like most people, I usually just blindly click through EULA's and sign whatever documents wherever somebody tells me to but in this case not doing so paid off. I certainly wouldn't have expected that I'd be required to give them 90 days notice before vacating the storage unit.
I fully intend to walk into the office, hand them
the key, and point out that I never signed the
document and will fight any attempts to charge me
the next three months worth of rent.
I hate to break it to you, but that contract is enforceable. Pretending for a moment that this is something that would ever make it to court, you would be found in breach.
In reality, what will happen is this: You'll refuse to pay. They'll casually send your account to collections. You'll get some phone calls from a collection agency and it will hurt your credit report. Ultimately, you'll pay them to protect your credit score.
I hate to break it to you Brandon, but you're wrong. He never signed the contract requiring 90 days notice. In fact, he didn't sign any contract, so only the most minimal terms are part of the de facto contract that exists between the OP and the storage facility. Generally, that means the right to store stuff for a month, renewed each month at the option of the renter. This is basic contract law in America, especially as it applies between businesses and consumers.
Also--what you've suggested regarding collections is illegal. Ultimately, the storage facility would end up paying the OP significant damages and legal fees--after paying to clean up any economic harm they cause to his credit, and any economic harm he suffered as a result of such credit score damage.
Presumably if this did go to court he would just tell the court he had neither seen nor signed any contract, and dare them to forge one, which they might do if they had any examples of his signature.
I can't get over the 90 days notice thing. For storage, that is ridiculous. It's not like they're going to start running ads in the paper for "Unit J-14, a 5x8 walkup". I've rented numerous storage units in numerous states, and I've never been charged more than the last complete month. (So OK, maybe I've been screwed out of 29 days, but I understand they don't want to mess with billing cycles or proration.) Also, I've never gone into a storage place and found any size I wanted unavailable. These places don't want to leave money on the table, so if they start filling up they either raise prices or build more units. If you never fill up, 90 days notice is ridiculous.
> he would just tell the court he had neither seen nor signed any contract
If he claimed he didn't see the contract, he would be committing perjury. They wouldn't bother to forge his signature because even if both parties legitimately forget the story about the fax machine, the court would likely still find the contract enforceable.
At absolute minimum, they'd have an oral contract. However, that oral contract is probably "You pay, and we'll both abide by the terms of my standard contract."
Now, that's not to say that the court will find the 90 day clause enforceable. The court may decide to enforce the contract as limited by industry norms, which may be 30 days. I don't know, but he certainly won't get away with paying nothing.
I should probably add, IANAL, but I'm also not just making this shit up.
I should've been a bit more specific. I fully expect to pay for the last month (and I'm okay with that). The 90 day thing is a bit too much though, IMO.
Perhaps because he carefully read the contract, provided payment knowing the contract terms, specifically conspired to violate said terms, and then posted the whole story to the internet might qualify? There's a concept of "good faith" in the law. This is just vile, sorry. If you don't like the terms you have an obligation not to buy the service.
Uh...no. He agreed to pay $X a month to storage goods at the facility. He never agreed to the rest of the terms, which he would have indicated by signing the contract. The business indicated assent by not requiring him to sign the contract to receive his storage unit. Thus, under the basic principles of U.S. contract law...a very basic contract exists, and none of the extra stuff in the written document is part of it.
If you'd taken the contract home and _not_ read it, you would probably be more in the clear. Since you read it and knew about the 90 day rule and continued to pay, it could be argued that you had an agreement. This is why we sign contracts instead of other forms of agreements; there is less ambiguity.
Buying the service doesn't legally enter him into the additional contract.
Signing the contract does that, and that's why he was asked (half-assedly) to do that. If anyone is liable for damages due to failing to properly conduct the company's business, it's our Facebook surfing friend at the counter.
That's entirely backwards, sorry. A "contract" is just an agreement. The signature is just a piece of paper that can prove the agreement was reached. Courts enforce "implied" and "verbal" contracts all the time, and in fact signed contracts are routinely voided for technical reasons too.
The poster above read and understood the contract, and continued to pay the vendor with that understanding in mind. That is absolutely a legally enforceable contract. And in fact the post above is blindingly obvious proof of a bad faith intent to violate the contract. Sorry, there's no leg to stand on here. That's just not the way the law works.
Contracts don't require signatures. Verbal contracts are enforceable outside of certain odd cases (for instance buying a house). They mainly get signatures to exactly qualify what was agreed and to make sure you don't claim you didn't agree.
I am not sure if this would fall under rental law, which I would assume requires a signature.
If he had not read the agreement it would be difficult to hold him to it, however once he had read it continued payments are him affirming the contents of the contract.
Now whether it is worth the effort to fight his logic is another matter entirely.
For his sake I hope not. If he did he could end up in prison if this was brought to trial (if a first tim eoffender he would probably just get a fine). Forging signatures is really bad, never do it.
Debt collectors in the UK do this as a matter of course. If you ever get one on your case, your solicitor will suggest that you print your name or write an X rather than use your signature or it'll come up on another document agreeing to piles of additional charges later on.
If he didn't sign it, then he didn't agree to the 90 day clause. If they charged him, then he has the right to use the space for a month - no more, no less. But, they could lock him out at the end of the month and not auto renew the 30 day lease.
Contracts exist to protect both parties.
Now, that being said - this would be a small claims issue and it probably isn't worth dealing with for $120.
I don't know how things work in your country, but in mine in the abscence of a written agreement the oral agreement becomes binding. Since you told the clerk that you would take the document home to sign and then never contested it afterwards even while paying for the service, a judge could find that you implicitly agreed to all of its terms through oral agreement.
That sounds pretty shaky, there was no implicit agreement to sign under any circumstances. There's also the fact he took it away with him under the proviso that he's going to study it first, and then fax back the signed agreement.
The very fact that he did not fax back the agreement would be a pretty difficult argument to counter.
No, the fact that he started paying is a pretty difficult argument to counter. I think, in general, if two people negotiate on given terms and then start acting as if they had agreement (guy gives him the storage locker, OP starts paying for it) that's pretty good evidence of the contract existing. As far as I understand, this often overcomes some kind of technical problem with the instrument in question. (For example in this case the lack of a signature, only oral agreement.)
If it weren't this way, then mutual misunderstanding (for example the actual contract two parties signed is simply flawed or doesn't state what they think it states) would preempt the terms the parties agreed to; moreover, it would mean that you could totally distort the reality of what the parties actually started doing (how they behaved) by narrowly technically reading the paper instead of the agreement.
I also think this is the source of common-law marriage: if two people act as if they're married, that's good enough after a while, even if the actual instrument is missing or flawed in some way.
Somewhat off-topic, but this thread is a perfect example of how much Hacker News would benefit from some legal expertise to match its technical expertise - although usually the discussions that veer into law involve copyright or other IP, in this case as in those, it would be interesting and useful to get some kind of consensus, perhaps not definitively predicting the outcome of a court case, but definitively explaining what factors a court would take into account and the relevant standards, which I suspect would be easy for a lawyer with some relevant expertise to recall. Instead, this thread is full of short, conflicting opinions, with little to indicate who might be right. I am not sure there is any reason to believe this can be improved, but it's unfortunate for a forum that prides itself on high-level discussion.
Speaking from personal experience doing similar things, that's really manipulative behavior on your part. How do you think the people working at the company will feel when you give them zero days notice and they realize they've been screwed over just because somebody forgot to check up on the paperwork?
If I was in your situation now, I would walk in there today and announce my intention to move out so at least they have some notice. I might mention that I never signed the document because I wasn't comfortable with the terms, and see if they'll let it go. Worst case loss is about $100.
If I hadn't read the document (they clearly expected that I wouldn't and were quite surprised and perturbed when I did), they would have had absolutely no problem taking $138 from me for a service I wasn't using (the last 90 days).
Why should I feel bad for managing to keep $92 of my own money!? If I walked in on the last day and then they told me I signed the contract and was on the hook for the last 90 days of rent, do you honestly expect that I could simply say "oh, wow, I didn't realize that" and they'd let me out of it.
Please. It would have been "sorry, should've read the contract!"
You broke your word to the employee. You promised him you would fax him the contract with your signature. You've known for one or two years that this day would come and that the required notification was 90 days. You decided to stay with the company for well over 90 days, so with a little bit of advance planning you could have met their draconian requirements. Now because of a technicality - you neglected to fax them and they forgot to collect your signature - you might be legally able to get out of it.
Yes, you'd save $92, but in terms of your own life, getting out of it is worse for you than it is for them. If you go around the world not trusting and manipulating people, you experience the world as an untrustworthy and manipulative place. You will never be close friends with somebody that you cannot manipulate, and you'll never be close friends with somebody that you can really truly trust. These things might not matter to you until you're in a really bad situation, but by then it will be too late.
Look, I've done lots of things like this. I've put people into jams that they simply couldn't get out of with no visible harm done to me in the eyes of anybody else. Being manipulative gives you power and control and money, but not being manipulative gives you personal integrity. At this point in my life I would easily pay $92 for my personal integrity.
The right thing to do in this situation if you really felt like 90 days was walking all over you would be to take back the contract the very next day and either agree on 30 days or get your money back, possibly with a chargeback from your credit card. The second best right thing would be to give them 90 days notice. The third best right thing would be to go and talk to them right away. When I say "right thing" I mean "thing that is not somehow taking advantage of the situation". It's not about the money, it's not about the other party's behavior, it's about the kind of person you want to be.
You're creating a false choice. You can have trusting relationships with family and friends and still be shrewd when it comes to business. By all means trust your loved ones. When it comes to business arrangements, stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties. If this were a situation based on personal trust, they wouldn't have you signing a contract in the first place.
Perhaps, but it would also be hypocritical, and hypocrisy is the opposite of integrity. A lack of integrity by definition affects all areas of one's life. What happens when down the road you get involved in a business deal with a friend or family member? But, go ahead and substitute "close business partners" for "close friends" in my comment if you insist that the personal and professional spheres of one's life are completely separable.
Also, the premise of "stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties", while valuable in conflict situations where you've entered into a contract in good faith, is manipulative letter-of-the-law legal wrangling when the usual negotiation process has been abused to get out of signing something and the other party isn't even aware that you have different beliefs about the terms you've agreed upon.
Why don't you strike out 90 number on their contract and put 14 for example, sign it and fax
THAT back?
I'm pretty sure they are not going to read the contract but simply file it somewhere....
That's not entirely true. I release 2 people from contracts they had signed just this month, even though their notice was far short of 30 days. I've worked at several companies that will give refunds to customers even when we don't need to.
More importantly, I don't accept that other people treating you badly is reason enough to treat them badly. Not being able to give proper notice is one thing - purposefully withholding notice out of spite stemming from their terms of service.
I'll pay them for the last month but I think 90 days is unreasonable. I honestly probably wouldn't have rented the unit if I knew that was the case but that's my own fault -- just like it's their fault they didn't make sure I signed the agreement.
Why don't you strike out 90 number on their contract and put 14 for example, sign it and fax THAT back? I'm pretty sure they are not going to read the contract but simply file it somewhere....
When I do, I fully intend to walk into the office, hand them the key, and point out that I never signed the document and will fight any attempts to charge me the next three months worth of rent.
Let's rephrase that:
You fully intend to tell them that you made use of their property without their permission and without compensation, and will attempt to fight any attempts to hold you accountable for what is, at the very least, repeated trespassing.
Yes, that's going to end wonderfully for you. However, there is a chance you'll get an audience -- a captive one, even -- for your interesting legal and moral theories.
> you made use of their property without their permission and without compensation
He did pay them for he service, he just didn't agree to the terms and conditions pertaining to 90 days notice.
It probably wouldn't hold in court under grounds that once he became aware of the 90 day notice requirement and yet continued to pay for service he had implicitly agreed.
I love how not only do you sign for something that you didn't read. But they can then change the privacy policy without sending you a new copy to agree to.
Under 45 CFR §164.520(c)(2)(iv) any changes must be distributed to patients within 60 days. Additionally unlike most other agreements, for HIPAA notices of privacy practices you do not sign that you agree to the terms rather that you have seen the terms.
I suspect there is some kind of mathematical ratio concerning EULAs (in whatever form) that somebody figured out and that is just getting more and more absurd with each year that passes.
The basic idea is that the user wants something (in this case medical treatment, but it could also be music via iTunes) and that's all nice and well - BUT! - one last caveat, we need you to sign this thing here.
Now the ratio kicks in - if your desire for "the thing" is big enough, "the thing you need to sign" just needs to look both terribly unimportant ("yadda yadda, nobody reads this") but at the same time important enough to be understood as necessary ("oh everybody has legalese upfront these days, that's just the way things work, who cares"). Bonus points if the process you're going through happens very often to a lot of people ("everybody just clicks OK and chuckles about it").
Asking anybody to sign 3000 pages of legal statements without giving it too much thought is bonkers, but everybody just assumes "well, they probably can't do anything terrible, because our laws prevent that, right?". So we click through EULAs and sign agreements that are now just nuisances getting inbetween us and our desire for "the thing we want".
The people who make these agreements do them because they are required to have them, by law or circumstance (CYAs). Not having an agreement is not an option. The people who sign the agreements do that because they have already decided that they want "that thing" no matter what. Not having the thing is not an option.
What a profoundly weird situation. Through what I would guess were a couple of outlandish precedents, we now have established a custom that none of the involved parties cares about nor has anything to gain from, really. But we still do it.
It's like two sides playing soundwaves with opposite phases, cancelling eachother out. Everybody assumes that's ok, because it's quiet. But you could just as well simply stop playing the damn sounds.
I have heard that these Privacy policy statements also make the doctor (or his assignee) a 'co-author' of anything that you may write about your experience in their office. This allows them to issue take-downs on bad reviews that end up online.
When I take cash out of the bank I'm usually handed a form that says that I have received the money that I have to sign in order to receive the money.
I say very politely that I can't say that I have received the money until I actually have.
Usually the teller has this smile that means "here's another one of them". Sometimes they don't smile at all, and I had to really argue once or twice, but in the end they all accept my reasoning.
Here in Taiwan businesses have to give a so called "fapiao", which is an invoice and a receipt in the same time. If another company wants to buy something from your company, you have to give them fapiao (since it's a 'invoice') and pay your taxes based on that to the government immediately (since it's a 'receipt' as well), even if you haven't received a dime yet.
And since in its receipt capacity there's no other thing to issue to the company once they pay, they could pretty much just not pay and say "why would I have gotten a fapiao[receipt] if I haven't paid, dude?"
It's just amazing how many truly stupid things keep being done with finance, and I'm puzzled about how could they be fixed.
Amending contracts before signing is a perfectly fine practice and should be done more often. I routinely do this to some reasonable extend.
I once singed up for a gym membership that had terrible stipulation to the point it was offending. I plastered the entire contract with "no" and "not" additions. It still went through.
The whole song and dance bugs me. It's not practical. What patient is really going to read a 3,000 page document? How long would that even take? How much would a typical patient even understand?
Who benefits here? Lawyers? Insurance companies?
It's like that fine print on TV commercials. No human can read it given the size and the duration on screen, but that company covered their ass by having it there.
I couldn't care less personally, but theoretically there are people who wouldn't want their treatment information shared. I suppose if they have diseases such as HIV or something. It's kind of a bummer it makes it so tough to do startups in the field.
I suppose I do like the provisions that prevent sharing information with marketers that came along with all the other laws, but would have been just as happy if that was left up to the free market. E.g. check this box for $50 dollars more expensive treatment or we might share your records with pharma companies that will market medicine to you.
...theoretically there are people who wouldn't want...
Whatever the patient wants, how will she find that topic addressed in two paragraphs out of 3,000 (or even 20) pages? It's hard copy; there's not even a search function! A situation in which people are forced to surrender rights in order to receive service, especially if they've gone to some inconvenience even to get an appointment, is neither equitable nor just.
I usually just do not sign without saying anything and have not had a problem returning doctors forms mostly empty (especially no SSN, that's asking for trouble). It's highly likely that no one at the office has any more insight into why the information is being asked than you do. If it's critical they won't leave it to a line on one of many forms.
its just a waste of everyone's time. no one cares even if you are able to prove a point we all know there are rooms off the grid where their are agents that can make you do or say anything they want. but I forget you are in the USA and I am in Russia.
I never understood, since HIPAA is theoretically designed to protect the patient's privacy, why doctors/practioners aren't required to sign notices/contracts to the patient.
Nobody reads Software License Agreements. Barely anyone reads (and is able to fully understand) the GPL (no matter which version). That's real life. Suck it up, Stallman.
How is this at all relevant? The GPL is always available to read (and usually included in full text in the project.) This is about having to agree to terms you don't have access to even if you want them.
Assuming this is a standard private practice, this office has several violations of 45 CFR §164.520(a)(b)(c), assuming that he was also not provided this privacy statement within 30 days with a reason for why it was not provided on the first visit.
This makes them liable for $50,000 in fines per failure to a max of $1.5 mm (this would be a clear cut case of reckless indifference.) The DHHS OCR is always looking for some head to serve on a platter to justify themselves as well.
His amendment to the form is damning evidence and that receptionist should be fired, there is no excuse for basic HIPAA noncompliance in 2011 (8 years after the fact).
Edit: What some people don't seem to understand is that signing the privacy practices notice (the form in question here) does not mean you agree to the terms and conditions outlined. You only sign that you have received them. Additionally, whether you sign the form or not it applies to you, and whatever that form states HIPAA clearly outlines what powers the covered entity (the doctor in this case) has over your information.