Yes/No requirement for Med form

[W W Meixner]

Nonsense. One person made such a sarcastic comment. Read nothing into that.

T...

Thank you...

Best...

Warren...

 

[tridacna]

Your last point is fairly universal - it is bad business to fail to respect a customer’s private information. (Which is why any invoice, service record, etc. I dispose of goes through the shredder first)
HIPAA however does not apply to the RSTC/PADI Medical Statement or the MD sign off in the US. I don’t recall the specific explanation(s) on how it is not covered by that act and so don’t have accurate detail to share, but I am confident in that position. Which does not mean one should not take care with the documents.

HIPAA protects Doctor-Patient privacy. I presume you’re not a med prof so HIPAA does not apply to you.

 

[Manatee Diver]

HIPAA however does not apply to the RSTC/PADI Medical Statement or the MD sign off in the US. I don’t recall the specific explanation(s) on how it is not covered by that act and so don’t have accurate detail to share, but I am confident in that position. Which does not mean one should not take care with the documents.

What is because HIPAA only applied to covered entities. Covered entities are defined as the following:

Covered entities are defined in the HIPAA rules as (1) health plans, (2) health care clearinghouses, and (3) health care providers who electronically transmit any health information in connection with transactions for which HHS has adopted standards.

HIPAA Privacy Rule and Its Impacts on Research
Stolen from the above site, because I don't have my HIPAA guide on this computer.

 

[jlcnuke]

Your last point is fairly universal - it is bad business to fail to respect a customer’s private information. (Which is why any invoice, service record, etc. I dispose of goes through the shredder first)
HIPAA however does not apply to the RSTC/PADI Medical Statement or the MD sign off in the US. I don’t recall the specific explanation(s) on how it is not covered by that act and so don’t have accurate detail to share, but I am confident in that position. Which does not mean one should not take care with the documents.

HIPAA only applies to medical professionals and those in the medical field. Since dive organizations and dive instructors have nothing to do with the medical field (despite some people in the diving industry thinking they have medical knowledge or having their own medical opinions), the law doesn't apply to them.

 

[jlcnuke]

Folks...

I had a post retirement LDS position in Central Ontario for seven years...

The shop owner was a brittle type one diabetic...he was a DM for as long as I knew him...

For the last 4/5 years of his life he was a OW/AOW PADI Instructor...with an SDI OW Instructor crossover certification...

From what I'm reading here...because of the type one diabetes...these professional level certifications should not have been granted...

Numerous IT's...as well as two certification agencies signed off on the Type One Diabetes...was this acceptable...or should professional level certifications been denied...

I'd appreciate if one our knowledgable medical/dive professionals could chime in...

W...

No agency "signs off" on type one (or two) diabetes. A doctor told his instructors (via a piece of paper) that he was fit to dive. The instructors then accepted that medical opinion as valid (having no reason to not accept it) and he was given certifications after meeting the requirements to have those certifications. I find it absurd that any dive professional would do otherwise, but apparently some do otherwise still. People with diabetes, or other medical conditions that random instructors decide they don't feel comfortable teaching students who have them, will just get their training from instructors who are more competent.

 

[tridacna]

No agency "signs off" on type one (or two) diabetes. A doctor told his instructors (via a piece of paper) that he was fit to dive. The instructors then accepted that medical opinion as valid (having no reason to not accept it) and he was given certifications after meeting the requirements to have those certifications. I find it absurd that any dive professional would do otherwise, but apparently some do otherwise still. People with diabetes, or other medical conditions that random instructors decide they don't feel comfortable teaching students who have them, will just get their training from instructors who are more competent.

This is not a student scenario. This is a Dive Pro issue. Think of the consequences. And no agency signs off - period. An instructor “signs off”.

 

[jlcnuke]

This is not a student scenario. This is a Dive Pro issue. Think of the consequences. And no agency signs off - period. An instructor “signs off”.

Are you saying an instructor says it's okay for him to dive as a diabetic? What form do they fill that out on? Last I heard the only ones attesting to any diver's medical fitness (whether professional, recreational, or technical certifications) is the doctor who signs off on the medical form.

 

[pauldw]

Your last point is fairly universal - it is bad business to fail to respect a customer’s private information. (Which is why any invoice, service record, etc. I dispose of goes through the shredder first)
HIPAA however does not apply to the RSTC/PADI Medical Statement or the MD sign off in the US. I don’t recall the specific explanation(s) on how it is not covered by that act and so don’t have accurate detail to share, but I am confident in that position. Which does not mean one should not take care with the documents.

PADI probably believes that HIPAA's privacy rule does not apply to the checklists because--contrary to popular opinion--the privacy rule only applies to medical records kept by "covered entities," which means medical places that have electronic health information. Your hospital or doctor's office is almost certainly a covered entity. A dive shop probably is not.

Edit: Oops, I didn't see that this question had already been answered

The shop owner was a brittle type one diabetic...

And right there is the problem. There are some people whose conditions are so flaky there's no solid ground for believing it's safe for them to dive, and brittle diabetics would rank high on my list of such situations. Someone may get a doctor to sign off, and the doctor may or may not have put some thought into doing so, or the doctor may just be rubber stamping a form. You can get doctors to pencil whip things. I have a T1D relative, and I wouldn't take her diving if she was brittle, and I could hardly blame a LDS or DM from being concerned about taking someone down who might or might not be telling them the truth about potential problems and whether they're stable. So I'm sympathetic to professionals who want to know what's going on medically with people who may be worse off than they want to admit. At the same time, I don't like people nosing into my business. So, again, it's a touchy situation. And those kind of situations work better with soft voices than loud ones.

 

[tridacna]

Are you saying an instructor says it's okay for him to dive as a diabetic? What form do they fill that out on? Last I heard the only ones attesting to any diver's medical fitness (whether professional, recreational, or technical certifications) is the doctor who signs off on the medical form.

What are you talking about? Were you responding to me? Your post makes no sense.

The only one(s) attesting to the diver’s fitness to dive are the student, the doctor and the instructor who will decide if he/she wants to train that student.

 

[jlcnuke]

What are you talking about? Were you responding to me? Your post makes no sense.

The only one(s) attesting to the diver’s fitness to dive are the student, the doctor and the instructor who will decide if he/she wants to train that student.

Of course I was responding to you, I quoted you responding to me. I stated that the doctor was the one who decides medical fitness and you replied to that with "an instructor signs off", so I was trying to understand what you were trying to say. It seems, based on this response, that you agree that the doctor and the patient/student decide fitness to dive, and the instructor decides if they're willing to teach or not.

I happen to believe that any instructor unwilling to teach someone because they don't have the medical knowledge to understand that the person is fit to dive, despite the student and their doctor saying they do, has a personal issue that is screwing up their ability to do their job. If they think a person lied etc about their medical conditions, that would be a different scenario; but for those who get their doctor's approval for diving I can't imagine a good reason any competent instructor would override the decision about their medical fitness to dive that a qualified professional doctor has made. Others may not agree with that assessment, but I've seen no good reason to think that isn't the most obvious conclusion to come up with for such people's decisions.