Consumer Fraud consumer protection

[guestposter]

My ss# was given to an individual by a local hospital It was not brought to my attention until about 6 weeks ago. The ss# was given in 05 during, what the health information mgr called a computer "glitch" I was made aware of it while requesting a copy of medical records this year in May. The information mgr gave me a copy of the individuals drivers license(another HIPPA violation) So I subsequently pulled my credit report and found this woman has obtained truck loans payday loans x 2 credit cards as recently as May of this year. My question is does this fall under the discovery act ? Can I still make the hospital take responsibility for what they have done. ?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

You would seem to be able to sue the hospital but you certainly shouldn't mention that you used the individual's drivers license! All you need to sue for damages are the following elements:

1) You suffered damages;
2) The hospital violated some duty to you (to protect your information);
3) There is a proximate cause between the hospital's violation of that duty with the damages suffered by you - you suffered the damages because of the hospital's wrongful act.

I don't know what caused you to connect the two but evidently something leads you to believe that there is a link. You probably should file a report of identity theft with the FTC if you haven't already.