Doctor's office question

I think it would depend on the individual situation. I have a friend who's been trying to get pregnant for a couple of years now and is doing monthly blood tests, etc. The entire dr's office would be aware that both she and her husband would LOVE to hear such news and would probably give it to him.

I'd think that to be safe, if a woman didn't want them to tell the husband, she would have to specify.

As I understand it, under the latest medical privacy laws, the doctor isn't allowed to tell anyone but his patient unless the patient has specified the doctor can tell someone else. Now if the doctor knows both people, he or she might.

They'd know before she left the office that she was pregnant. It's not like the old days when you'd have to wait for the rabbit to die.

If you want to have the husband find out on the sly, you could always have the doctor's office call to change the time of her ultrasound appointment. They'd do that real early in the pregancy to determine how far along she is. And it would be a vaginal ultrasound.

ring ring
"Hello?" husband says.
"Is so-and-so there?"
"She's out, may I take a message?"
"this is nurse Nancy at Dr. Goodbody's office. We need to change her ultrasound appointment from 9am to 1pm on Thursday. Would you have her give us a call if this is not convienvient? Oh, and congratulations."
Husband: wha?

Oh, I should add, I've done it four times. All my tests came back within minutes. Urine tests, nothing complex.

I very much doubt the surgery would call the woman. They would tell her to call them, to keep it confidential.

Siddow said:

They'd know before she left the office that she was pregnant. It's not like the old days when you'd have to wait for the rabbit to die.

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What about if they're doing a blood test for something else, though? I could be totally wrong here but sometimes when they're doing blood work for something else not related to pregnancy, they'll go ahead and check for that as well (in case they have to proscribe something that you shouldn't be on while pregnant). In which case the blood work would be out for a day or two.

Anyway it looks like you've found your solution so nevermind.

The pregnancy tests that I've done through the Doctor's office were done at the lab, and I had to call them to get results.

scarletpeaches said:

I very much doubt the surgery would call the woman. They would tell her to call them, to keep it confidential.

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Not necessarily true in the U.S. I've had them leave test results on an answering machine, although it was a few years ago and it wasn't a pregnancy test. Still...

I've also had them send me a letter or a postcard with test results.
And, unless it's really bad news, it's always the nurse, not the doctor.

I can tell you how I do it. Yes, most of the time we will do a urine pregnancy test and she will have the results right away. Sometimes I will want blood tests (if she has had a history of miscarriages, ectopics, or is spotting) and that can take up to 24 hours to get the results. I would NEVER tell the results to anyone but my patient because if I am tracking bloodwork I need to talk to HER personally to ask her questions and make sure she doesn't have any questions or further complications. I don't even say I am a midwife on my message. I say, This is Jane Doe calling from BlahBlahBlah. Can Patty Patient please call me at XXX-XXXX?

And if Nurse Nancy worked for me, I'd rip her a new one. Totally unacceptable. There are some jacked up situations out there and you can never assume that everything is hunky dory.

PS I may leave a message on her answering service if and only if she has given me express permission to do so, but I document that she gave me permission.

Ages ago, I worked in an OB/GYN office in the U.S. and one of the things I had to do was call patients to remind them of appointments. I was told, when leaving messages on answering machines or with people other than the patient, I wasn't to give out anything that might suggest the nature of the appointment, just saying that I was confirming the patient's appointment with Doctor X.

In your scenario, the nurse could give a message like that, saying, 'This is a nurse at Dr. X's office just calling with some test results. Please have Sue call us back.' The resourceful husband could always look up the doctor's name in the phone book and see that she/he is an OB.

Siddow said:

They'd know before she left the office that she was pregnant. It's not like the old days when you'd have to wait for the rabbit to die.

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Not necessarly. I've had urine tests to confirm pregnancies where I had to drop the urine sample by the reception desk and come back in a few days to find the results. They don't always do the tests right then and there.

If you want her husband to find out she's pregnant, why not just have her use one of those kits from the drug store and have the husband find the wrapper?

If she went to the doctor specifically to find out if she was pregnant, and if for whatever reason she didn't want her husband to know, and if she had to wait for the results, she'd certainly tell the doctor not to tell her husband, and the doctor--one would hope--would note that on her file.

Thanks to the new HIPAA regulations, most doctors offices have a patient fill out a form that states specifically who they may speak to in the event they call and the patient is not the one who answers. It will read "May we leave a message? If so, list the names of people we may speak to" or something like that.

PattiTheWicked said:

Thanks to the new HIPAA regulations, most doctors offices have a patient fill out a form that states specifically who they may speak to in the event they call and the patient is not the one who answers. It will read "May we leave a message? If so, list the names of people we may speak to" or something like that.

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This is true. But, at least at my doctor's office, you fill out the form once the first time that you visit the doctor. If you have tests done two or three years later, you might forget that you told them it was okay to leave a message.

JoniBGoode said:

This is true. But, at least at my doctor's office, you fill out the form once the first time that you visit the doctor. If you have tests done two or three years later, you might forget that you told them it was okay to leave a message.

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Officially, all doctors offices are supposed to have you redo the form once a year. They probably don't all do it, but they're supposed to.

BarbJ said:

As I understand it, under the latest medical privacy laws, the doctor isn't allowed to tell anyone but his patient unless the patient has specified the doctor can tell someone else. Now if the doctor knows both people, he or she might.

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Right, I had a form for all patients to document whom they authorized my office to discuss things with and they could checkmark whether it was by phone or in person and whether they wanted a password to be given. There were ocassions where a spouse specified to not divulge information to the other spouse.

PattiTheWicked said:

Officially, all doctors offices are supposed to have you redo the form once a year. They probably don't all do it, but they're supposed to.

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No, actually the form isn't even required at all, which is why it is not standardized. There is a standardized pamphlet, but that is given to the patient, not put in the chart. However you do have to have some way of documenting, so most offices have come up with their own forms. It's yet another nebulous regulation that appears to have been arrived at by commitee and so is very vague.

(unless the regs have been changed since I retired 2 years ago)

JoNightshade said:

What about if they're doing a blood test for something else, though? I could be totally wrong here but sometimes when they're doing blood work for something else not related to pregnancy, they'll go ahead and check for that as well (in case they have to proscribe something that you shouldn't be on while pregnant). In which case the blood work would be out for a day or two.

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I don't think they'd do that. Why draw extra blood for a pregnancy test when you can just have the patient pee in a cup right before or after getting her blood drawn, and know the result in minutes?

ideagirl said:

I don't think they'd do that. Why draw extra blood for a pregnancy test when you can just have the patient pee in a cup right before or after getting her blood drawn, and know the result in minutes?

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Actually that can easily happen. It's not that they draw an extra tube, but that the tests are sensitive enough that they might easily have leftover serum in the fridge for up to a week. In a hospital setting some will require a serum Beta-HCG rather than a urine test because it is more reliable in terms of documentation. However they would only run the pregnancy test if they found something else that would require doing something else where it would matter if they were pregnant.

Example: Lab calls the doctor, "Sally Jones' creatinine is a little on the high side."

Doctor, "Do you still have enough serum to run a pregnancy test? It may make a difference in what X-Ray study we use to evaluate that."

Lab, "Let me check the fridge...yeah we have enough."

In this setting, if the blood test is negative they probably would still do a urine test when Sally showed up for her X-Rays, to make sure she didn't get pregnant in the meantime

Medical privacy laws are pretty thorough (read: annoying). I can't even call to figure out what a bill is for or why the stupid insurance company won't pay it when it's my wife's case.

Here's something that my be of interest. I had an employee that was gone for a week without warning. She showed up the next Monday with a doctor's note saying she was being treated last week. I called the office and asked what she was in for. They told me they couldn't say because of privacy laws. I then said, "You are Such and Such Clinic. What do you do there?" The nurse paused ever so slightly and said, "We treat people for dependency issues." That confirmed that my employee was not out all week with GI problems.

JoniBGoode said:

Not necessarily true in the U.S. I've had them leave test results on an answering machine, although it was a few years ago and it wasn't a pregnancy test. Still...

I've also had them send me a letter or a postcard with test results.
And, unless it's really bad news, it's always the nurse, not the doctor.

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Ah, but I'm not in the U.S. though.

And nurse or doctor? Good grief. You should try getting through the dragon-like receptionists at my local surgery. I've had one pregnancy test in my life and it came back negative, thank Christ. I was 22 at the time, I think. Could be a year or two out either way. I had to call the surgery to get the results and it was the receptionist I spoke to. All I needed to do was give my name and date of birth and she gave me the good news.