If there’s one place that is rife with sensitive personal data, it’s hospitals. It’s why the United States federal government legislated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, which aimed to protect patients’ private information. 

But sometimes, it’s the healthcare workers themselves who disregard these protocols, seemingly neglecting the consequences that would affect them and their patients. 

Recently, people on Reddit discussed some of the most blatant and egregious HIPAA violations, a few of which may leave you questioning the integrity of the system. Fortunately, there is a silver lining: many of these erring individuals got the comeuppance they deserved. 

#1

I work at a nationally known hospital. It never fails that everytime a celebrity comes in, someone gets fired for looking at their chart.

Image credits: BabySharkMadness

#2

I once saw a specialist at a major hospital in my state’s largest city. I had just pulled onto the interstate home when I took a call (hands-free) from one of my best friends. He said “So, is your Social Security Number XXX-XX-XXXX?” He got it perfectly right. “Because,” he said, “I’m at (that doctor’s office) in the waiting room and your whole paper chart is just, like, open on the check in counter, no staff are around right now. Hey I didn’t know you’re allergic to (thing I’m highly allergic to)!”

I had words with that office, and immediately had myself discharged from care and went elsewhere.

Image credits: shiggyhardlust

#3

I had an ex who got fired on their first day for verbally giving someone their (positive) HIV results in the middle of a crowded waiting room.

Image credits: platinumarks

#4

A guy at the hospital I used to work at looked up a patient’s information to get her number and proceeded to message her because he thought she was attractive. She filed a complaint (and rightfully so) and posted it on Facebook. Last I heard, he still worked there but just had to change departments.

Image credits: littleone1521

#5

I worked in a small rural healthcare clinic. By the time a patient got home after an appointment, her family already knew that she was pregnant. Good thing she was happy about it. She did not want to pursue any action against the clinic. The staff involved had some disciplinary action, but weren’t fired.

Image credits: Longjumping_One_392

#6

A job(sales and not at all medical related) I used to work at was constantly getting faxes from a local doctor’s office meant for a hospital. The contents were orders for procedures and included detailed medical histories. We called the doctor’s office multiple times to inform them that they were leaking private info but it kept happening for months. Then I started calling the patients instead. Someone must have raised a stink because we soon stopped getting them.

Image credits: Xenoman5

#7

A man sending patient data to some woman he met on a dating site. The woman sent proof to the boss. The man was married, not to that woman.

Image credits: KP_Wrath

#8

Happened to me. I was getting a physical for life insurance. The person doing the physical was someone I knew from work (this person did insurance physicals as a second job). I had to tell her that I was newly pregnant for the paperwork. I told her not to say anything because I was still early in the 1st trimester and wasn’t ready to tell anyone outside immediate family. I’m at work a few days later, and someone congratulates me on my pregnancy. I’m like, “what the hell, how do you know!?” I knew how she knew. I reported her to the insurance agency.

Image credits: Serious-Currency108

#9

Purchased a used copier, previously owned by a medical clinic. They didn’t clear the copier memory before delivery and it had hundreds of patient file forms stored on it, including sensitive demographic data and SSNs.

#10

I mixed up two patients and gave one a copy of the other’s treatment plan. It wasn’t a huge issue and we went through the proper channels and procedures of reporting it. Even other coworkers said that they look way too similar.

Image credits: Kinky_introverts

#11

The military pharmacy gave me someone else’s meds just before closing time. I didn’t realize until I got home. We were both prescribed the same set of meds, but our names are very different.

You bet your a*s I went right back there in the am to get mine, return the others so that patient could get theirs (and not be told they already picked them up) and the next time I came in, they had a whole new system that actually had the patient verify their birthdate for the system when logging out meds.

I was being treated for a muscle spasm so I know me and the other patient had a very uncomfortable night.

Image credits: EquivalentTwo1

#12

I had to fire an employee for a HIPAA violation. She looked up lab results on a friend who was admitted to the hospital. She was caught, counseled, and put on probation (per hospital policy). She was caught less than 6 months later doing the same thing; looking up results out of concern for a friend. She was then fired.

Image credits: Serious-Currency108

#13

Part of my work involved going out and doing assessments of HIPAA protocols at provider offices. The receptionist had left to let them know I was here. I was in the lobby waiting and noticed someone come in and drop off a stack of Manila folders on the counter and leave.

When I went back and started the review, the first thing I asked was: “Did I see what I think I just saw?”

Office Manager dropping his head and nodded: “Yes, our other office sent some patient charts over.”

Not only had they been left there on the counter but hadn’t been secured and locked as was policy when transporting them.

Me: “You know that’s going into my report?”

Office Manager: “I understand.”

I had a coworker teach me one trick when walking through a facility. Just jiggle the mouse to see if they logged out of the EHR.

#14

Not a healthcare worker but a patient. Found out a couple months after my daughter’s death that a nurse had made a tiktok comment about one of the triplets dying in the NICU…as my triplets were the only ones there, it was a pretty big violation, plus the actual video mentioned another baby’s death. The nurse was fired. I’m glad the hospital took it seriously-we wouldn’t have even known about it if the hospital hadn’t told us. Luckily another nurse saw it and reported the violation to the manager.

Image credits: enough-flamingos

#15

I was with my BIL and niece in the ER b/c they had just been in a car accident. Nothing too serious, but niece was a baby and needed a once over and BIL was having back pain. The ER doc walks into the room to speak with them when he gets a phone call. He takes the call and still in the private ER room with my family, proceeds to give (and spell) the name, date of birth, previous medical history, and current condition of another pt. We all sat there in awe. I worked in a hospital at the time and knew this was a serious violation and regret not at least giving him a courtesy ‘um, you shouldn’t be doing that,’ but I was too shocked to even speak at the time.

Image credits: RoutineOther7887

#16

Nurse at a private clinic left her laptop facing outwards on the receptionist’s desk. I saw everybody’s names who had scheduled surgery that day and what procedure they were getting

RIP to the lady in for a buccal fat removal.

Image credits: Sternfritters

#17

Know a nurse who shared a patient’s birth story in great detail on her Instagram for clout. She was reported and all the hospital made her do was delete it. No other consequences.

Image credits: butforthegracegoI

#18

I asked for my medical records from a therapist I saw once because I needed them to from apply for life insurance. The office sent me someone else’s therapy record, notes and all. I made a huge stink.

#19

Social worker literally yelling a minor patient’s PHI (name, DOB, medical history) across the corridor and asking mom very personal questions about the patient like gender identity and sexuality (again, loudly, yelled across the corridor from the work station she was sitting at) in full hearing range of everyone sitting there and walking by. Complaint was filed and went nowhere.

#20

I had a coworker who was hired at the same time as me who was using our system to look up her family members. Specifically her sister in law who “thinks she’s better than me” and wanted to get dirt on her. Also read through all her children’s charts to see what the doctors thought about her. All our computer uses are recorded and I’ve even heard of people getting in trouble for hovering over a family member’s name unintentionally. I’m not sure what she was thinking.

#21

I worked with someone who hated a particular doctor we worked with. That doctor had to have surgery and this coworker went into the surgery department’s schedule to see what she was having done and then approached me and another coworker and started running her mouth about what she was having done and making fun of her. The whole time I’m just sitting there thinking ‘shut up you idiot, I will literally have to report this’. But she just went on and on. I reported the incident and she was fired. I would be horrified to have someone do that to me and it was such a gross thing to do.

#22

Not a healthcare worker but a few months ago I was sitting in a quiet cafe and a man at the table next to me was calling patients on speaker phone, verifying their identity via personal information (names, DOB, whole shebang), and informing them of test results and advising on subsequent treatment plans. Couldn’t believe it.

#23

Um. Just happened today. My boss sent raw neuropsychological testing data to the opposing counsel law firm in a court case for our former patient. She was supposed to just send the same report we send the patient/referral source. Instead, she sent the raw data, which can be used by other neuropsychologists to come to their own conclusions and can absolutely be used against our former patient. I have no idea what the case is about but it definitely won’t be a good outcome for my boss tomorrow. I don’t work in medical records. I have no idea what the f**k she thought she was doing — especially because she tells me all the time to send those requests to the medical records department.

#24

When my MIL was in the hospital, on a ventilator with Covid, a nurse at that hospital who happened to be buddies with my MIL’s boss told the boss that she probably wasn’t going to make it. Boss filled her position. She was on that vent for a month and in physical rehab for another month, but she pulled through! Boss was a nice guy and scrambled to make sure MIL still had a job to come back to but g*****n.

#25

In HR related work, the amount of doctors offices that have faxed over people’s entire medical chart instead of the one document we need like FMLA paperwork is insane.

We also got sent a completely random person’s medical chart that did not work for us and spent a good 10 minutes searching for this name in our system to find out this is a complete stranger’s medical chart.

#26

Former colleague 1 took a rear view photo of a patient outside the clinic and posted it on FACEBOOK with the caption “I can’t help it, I like what I like”, implying the patient had a nice a*s. Former colleague 2 commented “Is that [patient’s initials]?” to which former colleague 1 replied yes.

They were both fired immediately.

#27

Mine was when a co-worker saw the same last name as mine for a patient. Went into the chart, started going through it and saw it was a relative of mine (our name is uncommon,) and even started telling another nurse that she and I are neighbors! Fun!

No reason for her to be in that chart other than curiosity. Luckily the other nurse told me and the manager pretty quickly.

That girl had several other incidents that were small, but dumb HIPAA things that I was getting on her about. She did not last long.

#28

Lots of marketing/business development departments (at least in the behavioral health field) trade patients’ basic PHI as well as insurance information with their contacts at other facilities without patients’ consent. It’s fun calling a patient to let them know you verified their insurance when they’ve never heard of you nor gave permission for anyone to speak with you on their behalf.

#29

Not a health care worker but happened to my best friend. First thing to note is she was part of a clinical trial a few years ago and it was successful. While going through it her dog of a husband was cheating on her with an old classmate who also sold life insurance. One day friend gets call from d**g company that her medical files were accessed and what for. Because of the medical trial the d**g company nailed the insurance agent to the wall. She lost her license obviously and had fines to pay. But on top of that she was sued by my friend and my friend got close to a million dollar payout.

#30

We do inpatient hospice on our oncology floor. Night nurse called the family of a different patient to let them know the patient died and details about what was next. 

Needless to say, the daughter of the patient who was still very much alive was super pissed.

#31

Not a Healthcare worker, but when I was in university, I shared a name with an oncologist who worked in the medical school attached to my university, so our emails were very similar (think sherry.white@[school].edu and sherry.white-1@[school].edu). Guess who got so many emails chok full of patient information, diagnosis, treatment plans, etc. The best was when I got invited to a very fancy steak dinner at a nice restaurant in town. I seriously considered showing up and acting all confused as to why I was invited, but I figured the doctor might be pissed that she missed out, so I did what I always did in this situation, and replied with a meme of Obi Wan Kenobi saying, “this is not the sherry white you’re looking for.”.

#32

I did consulting at a clinic, one of the docs always took all the lab results (big stacks) home to sign off. One day the doc stopped for lunch and left about 200 patients lab results on the table.

#33

Not a healthcare worker, but my mom is and she used to work at the local hospital. When my older brother was hospitalized because he was actively dying from an STD eating his brain one of her co-workers went around telling everyone they worked with.

And, yes, my mom did file a complaint.

#34

My mother was a medical assistant for a respected neurologist that was used by the local judicial system for evaluations of individuals either pleading insanity or suspected as being such. When I was in the second grade, there was a local murder case in which a mentally disabled kid in his late teens s****************d and m******d a little girl. He turned out to be the son of a teacher at my school.

One night after my mom returned from work, she was telling our family how exciting her day was because the authorities had brought the suspect in for neurological analysis and she was the one that got to hook him up to the EEG. She went into full detail of how he was wearing a jumpsuit and that he was shackled and had to shuffle everywhere. She even went as far as to do an imitation of him walking around.

My eight year old mind was thrilled with the exciting news I was going to share with my whole class. The following morning, I did just that. I recited word-for-word everything my mom had told me. I even mimicked her shuffle. My teacher stood there with her mouth open and asked me to stop talking about it. She then made the mistake of telling the rest of the class that it wasn’t something to share with others. Obviously, the whole school knew about it by the end of lunchtime. Thank God the suspect’s mom had taken an extended leave of absence due to the circumstances, or things could have ended very differently. I’m not 100% sure what happened, but my mom found out about it. What I think it was is the school secretary, who happened to be a patient of the neurologist (something else I shouldn’t have known, come to think of it) must have caught wind of it and called my mom at work.

However she found out, when she got home that night, my mom was furious with me. She spent most of the evening gaslighting me into believing that I had made it all up. She told me to stop telling lies and to quit making up such outrageous stories. It’s the first time I remember her using gaslighting as a manipulation tactic with me.

She’s so lucky she didn’t end up costing her provider his career.

#35

It was in the days just before HIPAA, I was an intern. We had a patient get admitted onto our team in rhabdomyolysis. They were a high powered researcher just coming to the university, and had been going to several parties welcoming them to the university. One of the causes of rhabdo is alcoholism and we got the sense that they were a heavy drinker even before arriving. The researcher’s colleagues and the dean was calling asking for information about them, and it was being freely given. I expressed concern that we shouldn’t be talking to anyone about then and had an information blackout placed.

#36

Check in ladies at Kaiser eating Cheetos and gossiping with their computer screens showing everything.

#37

Had Employee A ask Employee B to look up a patient on Epic for her because she needed the Facesheet and couldn’t remember her login.  Then A goes on there and looks through the medical record.  Turns out it was A’s baby daddies new chick’s record.  A then texts husband that new chick has gonorrhea and starts popping off. B finds out about it because A was being Hella loud about it to anyone who would listen.  Needless to say A was fired and there was a staff meeting about security, passwords, and HIPAA review. .

#38

Assistant cheer coach was the nurse assigned to my daughter in urgent care after an ankle injury during practice. I caught her FaceTiming with the other coaches discussing who would replace her in the routine since she was going to be “out for the season” before I even got the x-ray results.

This was a town 8U team…needless to say she doesn’t do cheer anymore.

#39

Not a healthcare worker but long ago my husbands ex wife went to a doctor I also went to and they mixed up our charts (same last name, different first names) and called to tell me results of an STD test. It was an awkward call when I had to say I think you meant to call the ex wife, not me since I had not been in for a visit in almost a year.

#40

I work for a large metropolitan fire department, live in the city and had some really s****y neighbors for a while that would call 911 all the time for non-emergent b******t. Total dirt bags—whom inherited the house from their 99-year old mother earlier that year—causing problems for the whole neighborhood…

One summer day I’m out in the driveway washing my car when the fire engine pulls up for—like—the second time that week. Three of the four head inside—after a wave hello—and the engineer stays out to shoot the s**t with me for a while…

“You wouldn’t f*****g believe what your neighbors are calling for this time!”…

Proceeds to tell me about the shampoo bottle the guy had stuck in his a*s earlier in the week, and that they were there today for some rectal bleed/torn stitches complications from the previous day’s incident…

There are details, and then there are DETAILS.

Needless to say, we had a good laugh at my neighbor’s expense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

#41

So, not sure if this counts but the only reason someone informed my exs family that he was in the hospital was because one of the nurses recognized his last name and contacted his brother. The woman he was with at the time claimed to be POA and did not want the family contacted. .

#42

Not a doctor but… I was talking with a dentist I met in tinder and she sent me a photo of a patient of hers who was a homeless man with rotting teeth. Feel like that says a lot about her character.

#43

My partner came out of a well-check at a new GP’s office CRYING because the doctor had neglected to properly ID him… when she walked in and immediately started talking to him about HIV medication. He didn’t, and does not currently have HIV, but little did she know, he had a dirty needle stick like 8 years earlier while working as a medic at a hospital, and just always had it on the back of his mind, even after being cleared. When he started freaking out at this (idiot) doctor she apparently waved him off saying “oh sorry, wrong chart” but he was already panicking and demanding to see his test results… so instead of NOT violating HIPAA and showing him HIS results, she turned the screen so he could see the name on the chart that wasn’t his. He was telling me all this through sobs in the parking lot after getting up and leaving the office, and I had half a mind to march in there myself and give her a “lecture”… but I opted for reporting her to the medical board, her employer, the ombudsman, and we switched him immediately to a different provider.

#44

When I was in RN school, one of my classmates was assigned a female patient who had a stage 4 pressure ulcer on her coccyx–this was down to the bone and really awful looking, The wound care team had taken a photo of it and that photo was in the patient’s chart.

My classmate removed the photo from the chart and took it home with her where she showed it around to to her family and also a teenage neighbor. The neighbor told her parents who were so outraged that they called the school and reported it.

When our clinical group showed up at the hospital for our next class, which was two days later, the instructor tore into her in front of the whole group. She didn’t deny taking the photo, and in fact, had it in her backpack. She said she was going to return it to the chart. She apologized but didn’t seem to think she had done anything too wrong.

She was kicked out of the program. We were only a month from graduation, too.

#45

When my late fiancé was in the hospital with brain cancer, he had brief moments of being awake but for the most part was in a coma-like state.

I swear the hand of Fate was on me that day because I just HAPPENED to be in the room when this hospital worker came in and asked,

“Is this Mr. John Doe?”

Confused, I told him yes and he said that he was there to take him for a trach tube surgery!

I told him absolutely not, I had not been told about any surgery and it would destroy any form of communication we had left.

This guy was *pissed*. Started getting loud and arguing with me about it, saying that I just hadn’t been informed properly, that he needed to take my fiancé down now, etc.

You bet I 110% sat my happy a*s on that bed where my poor fiance lay dead to the world and told the guy if he wanted to take him, he would be taking us both.

So he stormed off to find the charge nurse and never came back.

About half an hour later the charge nurse came down (bless her, she was amazing) and sheepishly admitted that there was ANOTHER John Doe in the other wing that was going for the surgery. Literally same name, just different birthday.

I assume they would have caught it when they scanned the bands and realized the birthdays didn’t match up but at the time it was so stressful and stupid.

And honestly, it wasn’t like it was a super common name either!

#46

Patient here. I don’t know why the X-ray viewing lightbox was in the hallway, but I sure bet Greg Smitherson didn’t want me to see the X-ray with his pelvis…and the shadow of his p***s.

#47

Had a celebrity come into the ER discreetly prior to a local performance. Ended up having several nurses and residents access this person’s file inappropriately.

The other was a radiologist running for Congress a few years ago who campaigned on his many years of saving lives as a radiologist.. On His social media he shared an image of patient’s postmortem xray of their shotgun blasted head disparaging our hospital (where he was a resident in his younger years) and our patient base. The xray clearly had the patients name on it. I got the distinct honor of burying his a*s across all media for the clear violation of patient privacy and lack of medical ethics and filing multiple complains against him.

#48

ER where only curtains separate beds.

#49

I’m IT at a hospital. Wife is a nurse at ER, husband was in Radiology. They’re divorcing. Woman comes into the ER complaining of pain in her lower left quadrant, diagnosis: pregnancy. Woman is husband’s girlfriend. Girlfriend’s nurse was husband’s wife. Wife comes into divorce court and says, “his girlfriend is pregnant”

Husband didn’t know, girlfriend didn’t say, husband never disclosed girlfriend’s name. Wife just blatantly destroyed her career and alimony in one go.

Unfortunately we had to fire both of them.

#50

Used to work in a therapy centre. One therapist came out to reception and started to tell the admin staff all about one client’s problems, complete with their name, despite the entire admin team desperately trying to stop her. She was annoyed because the client was late.

The reception area and waiting room were the same area. There were clients in the waiting room. Including the client she was talking about, who was in fact pretty much on time.

The client walked out immediately, in a terrible silence. The therapist got whisked into the clinical director’s office. Then she went on unplanned holiday leave…and then I left the business so I don’t know what happened after that, but I think we can all imagine.

#51

I worked in info sec at a top 5 health insurance company. This was the same year HIPAA security regs finally passed. Most people were still using phone modems to connect their laptops while traveling. An employee was attending the HIMSS conference and used a hotel kiosk computer in the business center to access corp webmail. Back then, data egress and containerization were just concepts. He downloaded a large spreadsheet with TONS of the most private info. The attendee who used the kiosk after him was an auditor for CMS who found the entire file in the browser cache. I learned a great deal about browsers via Citrix after that.

#52

I don’t know if this is considered a violation but when I was 16 this doctors office that I had never been to in my entire life kept calling my house and telling me I needed to pay for the depo provera (birth control) shot that I apparently got.

My mom was furious with me. I was a bad kid so she didn’t believe me when I said it wasn’t me and I had no clue what they were talking about. They finally stopped calling after a few months. Idk how that mix up could’ve happened.

#53

I received someone’s HIV test results.

Thankfully I’m a nurse so I called the doctors office to report what happened.

They then refused to give me *my* results over the phone for

HIPAA compliance.

Seriously????? (negative).

#54

Worked at a medical records company. Saw a 100k row spreadsheet with patient names, SSNs, addresses, insurance numbers, etc being used for training a deduplication algorithm.

#55

A nurse called a family member in the middle of the night to let them know their loved one had passed away.

It was the wrong family.

#56

Health Insurance customer service call center about 8 years ago, one of the agents looked up their friends account without their knowledge or permission, and then the agent reached out to our client (the insurance company) about something they found on it. Had to deliver a PIP type thing to the agent, and 4 months later we started dating. A fairly unique “how’d you meet” story.

#57

Many many years ago I worked for a larger hospital system. One of the techs was like the worst person in the world. She was dating the night shift “house mouse” (don’t remember the official title, dude was the charge for the charges. If that makes sense)

So she got away with basically murder. One night she called him to get her lab results. He looked it up, gave her results and went on with his shift. About 6 months later they have the nastiest and very public breakup. She calls HR and said she had proof he looked in her chart. Dude was quickly fired and threatened his license.

She left pretty soon after that. Without his protection her antics weren’t tolerated. He ended up moving to another state. DONT LOOK IN PARTNERS CHARTS KIDS.

#58

I’m an athletic trainer and was working for a company that contracted me out to a small high school. As part of our contract agreement, the school was supposed to have athlete’s parents sign a form allowing me to coordinate care with our team doctors who worked with a large local hospital system. 

I had a freshman athlete with an issue and had been speaking with my counterpart at the doctor’s office to see if we could get them in for an appointment. The kid already had an upcoming check up with their PCP so, that afternoon when checking in with the mom I asked if she would bring up this other issue at that appointment later in the week. 

Mom was OUTRAGED that I knew about the appt and outright denied ever having signed anything allowing me to speak to the hospital system employees on her behalf. After doing some digging, the new athletic director had “forgotten” to include the form in the packet of required athletics participation paperwork. He and I hadn’t ever been on good terms (he was a coach before becoming AD) and I don’t think he “forgot”, but didn’t see anything I thought was important was actually necessary.  

I had to call my boss that evening and worked with her to report myself to our company’s compliance office. I also had to tell my counterpart at the doctor’s office that we didn’t have that form… for ANY of the kids we had been communicating about. Luckily nothing came of it (mom never reported me), but I was SO embarrassed and frustrated. It made my job so much more difficult for the rest of the year and I left for another school over the summer.

#59

Not a healthcare worker but years ago I received a treatment plan in the mail from my child’s therapist. Only it wasn’t for my child but a different kid. Strangely, I knew the other family (our last names are close alphabetically) and passed the envelope and contents to the mom. No idea if she complained to the therapist or not.

#60

Not in the field, but one time the assistant at my psychiatrist office sent a newsletter email and forgot to bcc the list, so every patient’s email address was displayed for every other patient to see.

#61

I was a paramedic in a big county. The worst is the EMS to police information about a patient. You can’t just give that information out and it drives me f*****g crazy when EMS providers do. Stop licking the boots and be an advocate for your patient. The cops will have to do their own investigation and will go down legal routes to do so.

#62

I knew a director for medical records that poorly managed the physical records. Joint Commission showed up for an audit. The director promptly took the backlog of records and hid them in the hospital gift shop. From their perspective, there was zero reason for the auditor to assess the gift shop. The records could be hidden there and then brought back to medical records once the audit was over.

#63

One of my coworkers, D, (receptionist in an outpatient dept of a hospital) asked her friend, F, (inpatient) to check in on another coworker, E, to see how her labor/delivery was going. D then cheerfully used that info and announced things about the baby and E around the office.

Luckily the baby was fine and birth weight/height/etc was info that E was going to share. E DID mind the complete violation of her privacy, and I was glad to see it got reported SO quickly that I didn’t even have time to wonder which manager to take it to.

D was cut some slack for being young (and we were extremely understaffed.) She left soon after and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

#64

Most egregious was actually when I wasn’t working in healthcare, but matched with a nurse on Tinder who proceeded to send me “work selfies” that included x-rays with a patient’s p***s clearly visible in them. Needless to say, the relationship did not continue but I didn’t report him to authorities because I didn’t even know his last name at the time. Also maybe not technically a HIPAA violation because I can’t recall if there was actual PHI — I didn’t zoom and enhance and look for the patients’ info or anything.

The most commonly observed one from my time in healthcare, though, was people looking up their own charts. Yes, it is a clear-but-stupid HIPAA violation to look up your own medical information without going through the medical records office / request system. People do it so often (and it’s so harmless imo) that even if the system flagged it they would just ignore it.

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