Professional Ethics>Confidentiality Practice Test

A community pharmacist receives a call from a woman who says she is the mother of a 22-year-old patient. She asks whether her son has been refilling his HIV medication and if there have been any issues with adherence. She is worried because he moved back home recently. The patient is not present, and there is no documentation of any HIPAA authorization or power of attorney in the pharmacy profile. The caller provides the son's full name and date of birth and insists she only wants to help. The pharmacist must decide how to proceed.

A man calls the pharmacy stating he is Mary Q.'s husband and asks for her current medication list to check for duplication. He provides Mary's address and date of birth but says she is unavailable to come to the phone. The profile shows no HIPAA authorization on file permitting disclosure to him. He insists he handles the household finances and needs the information today. The pharmacist can see that Mary picked up several medications last week, including a new blood pressure drug. The pharmacy's workflow is busy, and the caller pressures the staff to read off the list quickly.