I am filing a HIPAA violation complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights on behalf of myself and my then-16-year-old nephew because I was threatened if I did not release Protected Health Information.
Pretty much, ANY medical-related information such as diagnoses, treatment, the kind of doctors who are treating you or have treated you, medications classifies as Protected Health Information. Child protection agencies are NOT legally entitled to your PHI. They just “get your consent” by making false threats that you will be punished if you don’t release it or if you don’t sign release forms so they can retrieve records.
People shouldn’t fall for their threats. I was told that if I had recorded these threats, I could have pursued criminal charges against them. Most people are just so scared and don’t want to be accused of “not complying” that they don’t think clearly enough to realize that IF THESE GOONS WERE ENTITLED TO YOUR PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION, THEY COULD JUST GET IT ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT EVER ASKING YOU FOR IT. Why would they seek disclosures from a person or force people to sign release/consent forms, if they had a right to Protected Health Information in the first place!
The caseworker, who’d only been on the job two months before the children were removed from their mother’s care, complained that I “intimidated” her — ONLY because I would catch her in lies and contradictions, and point them out to her. It frustrated her that I was smarter than her, and that was pretty much what it boiled down to.
Also, you can file a Discrimination complaint with the Office of Civil Rights with the HHS.
Disability falls under the Equal Protection Clause of the Bill of Rights. Too many people with disabilities just don’t pursue their rights… because we are so beaten down, ostracized and treated like we are less than human.
Here are the links for the HHS complaints:
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/civilrights/index.html
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.html
Oh yeah…. After the OCR investigates (which will involve reviewing the casefile), it could lead to a case filed in federal court. I was told that once it is set to go to court, the person whose rights were violated is most always successful.
Have you ever spoken with the state disability advocacy office in your state?
If you don’t have their website or info, I can find that for you. Every state has one. They are completely independent of all other agencies. In Alabama, ours helped initiate a landmark civil rights case against the DHR to change their policies (even though they’re not being followed).
ANY parent or ANYONE who has been targeted for a disability (or suspected disability), threatened for their personal medical info & treatment info, and/or treated differently/treated badly due to age, race, gender, religion, etc. has the right to file these complaints.
These federal agencies welcome these complaints, and they want to know who is violating our basic rights and federal statutes. When we feel abused and without any real rights, we shouldn’t give up… There IS recourse!
I think you’ll get some excellent responses from the post with that information.
And, I PRAY that your daughter has luck with her complaints, if you guys choose to do that. From what I’ve read of her experiences, there is certainly cause!
I think CPS is the WORST to violate people’s ADA rights and civil rights. If only more people knew that they can report their abuse to the DOJ and HHS!
We need to give these goons a dose of their own medicine, and turn the tables on them!
Jim Black
savethechild2013
Yvonne Mason Sewell
How Child Protection Services Buys and Sells Our Children 
Thank you for stating this important information. Those of us out here in the middle of CPS generated nightmares are walking in the dark that they create, and maintain at every turn. I would tell anyone get it all in writing ask for policies regarding what they ask for to prove they have the right to do so. If they say it verbally IT DOES NOT COUNT. Write down what they say, send an email synopsis of what they say and what you are entitled to. Keep it ALL IN WRITING. Talking verbal will not help you. It’s like walking in the dark filled with holes, poisonous snakes…anything to make you stumble and fall. If you are in the dark…they mean for you to be there. Seek a parent advocate – never let them state “no one was hired or the position is vacant”. Take someone respectful with you and these people will act much differently to you. It doesn’t mean the battle is over or that they will not twist or commit sins of omission, but you will feel empowered. Make them accountable and do it with sweet saccharin …”I’ve graciously received your report….I found that there are errors you need to correct and I am sure that truth and full disclosure is very important to you…I am sending a copy of this to my attorney…..Thank you for understanding that I stand for accountability and truth above all…Remember write more say less verbally , but when you write – don’t give them a chance to say your requests were anything but on point. It made alot of difference to me. Talk to parent advocates, seek Families and Parents Anonymous. Don’t let CPS into your home EVER! No matter how truthful you are, they will twist it to hurt you! Keep a file with all of this good information. CPS never wants to give anything out, but hopes you will comply out of fear. Get your supportive army together!
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They do intimidate a person when they are on disability. I have a problem with DSS/CPS using a psych eval that was an investigation steered by a GAL which obstructed the eval with misleading info about my personal diagnosis to begin with. The psychologist actually interrogated me and demanded I give him my medical records. Scared that I would seem non-compliant and already ordered by the court to comply with any requests I did, while at the same time thinking I don’t see how this can even be possible because I have been raising my son since he was born and there is no indication that my child has any delays or is in any danger whatsoever. Secondary during the visitation however my child began to demonstrate bizarre behaviors and was very graphic in the tub after being dropped off. He was 3.5 I consulted a child center and the GAL was present and after they spoke with her the entire interview refocused on me and they said I needed to have an eval for thinking the father could have done anything to his son. Also since I was abused as a child they claimed I had unresolved issues. They wouldn’t view the CD or the photo I took. DSS just blew it off and I did file an appeal which went ignored for 7 months and then they dismissed the appeal so I never could demand how DSS found me as a threat of harm to my child for reporting the allegations or their interpretation of the psy eval that was grossly in error. not to mention it did state I was NOT a harm to my child. The appeals was the state level of Advocacy for Victims and Individuals Rights complaints against DSS but I think they protect DSS not people like me. There are no Disability Civil Rights for Protection when someone is abused by the legal system while being discriminated and slandered against during a custody case because they claim it is a PRIVATE MATTER. I was denied access to my own custody file because the courthouse said it was a DSS case and I have been strung along so much that it has taken all the fight out of me. I can only pray that my son will be protected by God since he has been away from me for 7 months now and it hurts to hear his voice with the anger and tears because I was supposed to keep him safe, well-adjusted and happy. The court believed the lies by a GAL and therefore he was given to his father. They allowed a frivilous lawsuit to enter in their system and when a custody suit is contested then by law requires mandatory mediation. They did not allow this. My privacy rights have been violated times 100. I have been slandered and discriminated against. The GAL stated in her report my son should not be with me 24/7 since I am a mother on disability and demanded I put my 3 year old in daycare. I have a teaching background and I enjoy staying home and teaching my son and I thought daycare was ‘optional’ when I sure as hell do not have the money for it. She said that was what child support was for. So I said I do not receive food stamps and the money for child support that she demands be allocated for daycare is taking food right out of my child’s mouth. These people need to be in jail for putting people like me otherwise referred to as a vulnerable adult through such hell. I am easily intimidated after receiving many threats that no one was willing to listen to. My son should never have been forced away from me. His father left and that was his choice, yet I am to be treated like the bad one for keeping his son from him?! This is insanity.
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I am currently on SSI/disability. CPS lied on me and stole my daughter from me. She is now 15, and they are going to send her to live with her abusive father. His visitation rights were terminated when she was two years old because he was so violent. They think he is wonderful though because he is a government employee with benefits.
They keep going on about how much money he makes and how I cannot support her on disability.
My girl has constantly said that she doesn’t want to live with him. They labeled her with a mental illness because of it.
He lives in another state. I cannot physically travel anymore very well at all because of my disabilities. I do not have the financial means to hire a lawyer in another state and fight for visitation rights. Once she is gone, it will be at least three years before I ever see her again.
The judge in my case said she didn’t care whether or not I did the things I was accused of and I am now on a child abuser’s registry because of things I never did. She even said in court that she did not care about my constitutional rights. And my court appointed attorney represented them instead of me.
My daughter later discovered the judge’s facebook page. The court appointed attorney and the CPS worker who lied on me are all friends with her on the facebook page.
The day they took her from me, there were two CPS workers at the door. I asked them politely to come back later and that it was a bad time. They physically forced their way into my home without a warrant and started taking pictures. I had stuff for a flea market booth that I was pricing, so the whole living room looked like a bomb had gone off in it. It was very embarrassing. I had not been able to find a job though in over a year of looking, and I was going to sell stuff in a flea market booth to try and get extra money to pay bills. I had several dozen boxes of stuff to price (people had been giving me stuff for months or I’d find stuff for free on a curb and I’d been selling it). I had not yet been granted the SSI at the time she was taken and was struggling on the child support money I was getting to pay bills. I had also been going to college and using student loan money for expenses.
I have no constitutional rights. Am I really even an American? I was born in Tennessee to two American citizens. Why did I not have any rights? Just because I am struggling in poverty? No one helped me. I was turned down for help everywhere. Maybe I’m just a nobody.
My daughter has begged to come home. They don’t care about her pleas. All they care about is money.
I have moderate to severe Crohn’s disease. I frequently am weak from the blood loss. My intestines just bleed. The more stressed I am, the more I seem to bleed. I have been very ill since she has been taken from me.
I loved and raised her for 14 1/2 years. Her bio-father only helped when forced to do so. He never willingly even paid child support for her. I have always been poor. I have been poorer before than now. Now they decide to steal my baby away.
I jumped through every hoop they made me jump through. I never had a chance to get her back. All of my efforts have been in vain. I spent all of the money I put back from student loans and my disability backpay on trying to get her back. It was all for nothing. I will lose her, possibly forever, anyway.
He is very violent and has threatened to kill both of us before. He has told me that he will make sure that I never see her again. I fear that he will kill her, hide her body, and claim she has run away. People think so highly of him that no one would do a thing to him. He gets away with everything. Since she is a teenager, it would be chalked up as another runaway teen.
He peppersprayed her when she was a baby after he lost custody of her to me. He told me it was my fault for leaving him. During the year he exercised visitation, he would inflict injuries on her and tell me it was my fault. To outsiders though, he is a smooth talker. He knows how to control and manipulate others.
I received letters in the mail describing how he was going to kill my daughter and me and lick the blood up with his tongue. He was charged with the crime, but the state of Virginia didn’t see anything wrong with it since we were married. They were a factor in terminating his visitation rights though.
Even with the history of domestic violence, they still view him as the better parent just because he has more money than I do. All they care about is the money.
They are planning to hand her over to him on October 24th. They weren’t even going to tell me about it. I was never served with papers. I only found out about it because someone let it slip. They had even kept it from my daughter. Their plan was for her to disappear from the state and then I’d just find out about it after the fact.
I feel very scared. I feel as though they are sending her to die. And there is nothing I can ever do about it.
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Check any and all court documents you have — specifically the inital petition signed by X worker and then approved by the judge to have the children removed from your care.
Mine is fortunately blatent in a HIPAA violation. They falsified information about MY personal medical condition “based on fictional reports and heresy” — that obviously were never seen in the discovery.
Our 3 kids were returned to us in under 21 days and I am currently purusing a case against the state —
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Hello, they took my 3children without a warrant or subpoena first of all. Then say they took my daughter out of school because of allegations from school personnel. My daughter had a scratch on her eye then they said abuse. I signed a paper for them to bill my ensurance I regret that. I signed a paper for someone to give my daughter therapy or counseling. I signed no more documents after that. I started my research. I hAve court tomorrow. I also have Native American heritage hopefully will help.
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this happen to me also only they call my local hosptial and obtained my results of a medical test with out even my knowledge. Now they are trying to use my medical information against me I called every where in my town and the hospital tells me that CPS doesn’t have to follow Hippa or the 4th admenment does anyone know if this is true
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I was employed at a bank that was robbed as i walked in from my lunch break. I was terminated right after. I have applied for benefits with the Department of Human Services in Lansing Michigan. I have a case worker who threatens to cut my medical insurance if I do not provide her with my medical records. I file an appeal o to a hearing where I was denied other benefits including complaints regarding why my caseworker keeps requesting my medical records. On September 18th the day I serve her with the Court of Appeal paperwork she puts a denial of my medical benefits in the mail as a form of retaliation for filing the appeal. someone please help me. I would love to prosecute this Ingham County DHS caseworker.
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