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I was recently at a medical office (this is in the US), and they had replaced their system, so I had to re-sign the variety of forms that they make you sign, HI

• 300bps 7y ago
  Nobody at the office seemed to understand here what my objection was. Of course not. Because the rest of us were writing, "HERP DERP" in the signature line and moving on with our lives.
  • why_only_15 7y ago
    The OP said > I overheard other patients saying things like "I'm not signing something I haven't seen" So it sounds like this was a common complaint
  • benburleson 7y ago
    Actually, that made me think of a good idea. If the provider employees aren't aware of what's actually happening in this situation or just don't care, just write, "I didn't read this form" on the signature line and hand it back. Have a good laugh when that document is presented to a judge.
    • koolba 7y ago
      I’ve done this with a bunch of “???”. Nobody has ever checked. It’s also a habit to sign actual restaurant receipts with a signature that isn’t my real one but a specific one for restaurants.
      • papln 7y ago
        You don't even need to sign anything sensible at all. They almost certainly aren't going to check, and if you try to defraud the restaurant by refusing to pay, you might find yourself in trouble, regardless of signature.
        • koolba 7y ago
          On the contrary, I’m not trying to defraud anyone. I’m using a custom signature as evidence that it actually was me; if someone swipes my card and uses it somewhere it’d be obvious that it wasn’t me because the signature would not match the consistent deterministic gibberish that the real me would have signed.
    • kbenson 7y ago
      I think signing "FORM NOT PROVIDED" might go over better with the judge, than outright stating what can be perceived as your own ignorance in signing something without reading it. That is, cut off the possibility that the judge, when presented with the printed form and your signature printed on it, interprets it as you signing "I didn't read this form" when the text was in front of you. In principle, when there's a problem situation you are documenting, I think it's better to make sure you document what the other party did wrong first and foremost, then move on to what you did in response to it.
  • asdff 7y ago
    For these kind of forms my signature is just a line; screw it. I've seen electronic forms where you literally type out your name in print, and sometimes they get cheeky and put it into a signature looking font. What's the point? I'd love to see whichever engineer cobbled that half baked system together watch it get blown up in court.
• jahewson 7y ago
  I once visited a doctors office that wanted me to sign a HIPAA release form to release my health records to... myself!
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    They want a signature on paper in case you're not you.
    • kbenson 7y ago
      Yeah, sounds like either you're the person in question, in which case the paperwork means nothing, or you're not the person in question, in which case you've defrauded the office and they can point to that (and how they were deceived) if the real person asks why their info was released.
      • qtplatypus 7y ago
        It also sounds like what happened at my (australian) high school. On a state exam one of my classmates had his older brother sit the exam for him. Now the coversheet for the exam has a place to write your name and sign it which you must do before starting the test. The older brother signed it as his younger brother. Then was charged with forgery. The requirement to sign was there to make that kind of cheating a crime.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
    • cf141q5325 7y ago
      Germany has the same approach with the forms you fill out on Hotel check in. They are on paper on purpose and have to be achieved for a year in case the police wants them to identify people. You of course could do that digitally, but then you wouldnt leave your fingerprints and DNA. German source https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article191846877/Hotelanmeldung-Der-Kontrollwahn-mit-dem-Meldezetteln.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article191846877/Hotelanmeldu...
• behringer 7y ago
  If you sign something without reading it the judge will take that to mean you're an idiot. Not a great way to look in front of a judge.
  • benburleson 7y ago
    Now I'm curious if these forms go the way of EULAs in the past, where it became obvious nobody is reading them and they agreement is compulsory to proceed to use the software, so it became understood that the agreement is effectively void because of the way it is presented and used. I think if it can be shown that the provider is making it difficult for the consumer to actually read the form before signing, a judge will actually be more upset with the provider. What is a patient supposed to do in this case? Leave the office? What if this appointment was scheduled several months in advance, which is not an uncommon wait time? To put this in the way of a patient's health should not be acceptable.
  • empath75 7y ago
    Nonsense. People do it all the time. No judge is going to think you’re an idiot for signing some meaningless waiver that millions of other people do.
    • behringer 7y ago
      If you think that's true then you haven't seen many judges. Other party: Did you read it before you signed it? You: No Other party: Why not You: Nobody ever reads these things Other party + Judge: :/
      • AstralStorm 7y ago
        A better one is to insist you have not seen the document and have been forced to sign it to consent to a procedure that was time limited. Now the onus is on the defense to show that it is not a common practice and who was responsible for that. Pretty excellent line to pursuit, hard to defend.
        • 7y ago
• arkades 7y ago
  Bonus points that most medical offices have only a vague idea what HIPAA actually includes. 80% of the time an office says "we can't do the thing you're asking us to do, it's a HIPAA violation," it's not a HIPAA violation.
  • alexbanks 7y ago
    My shoulder surgeon gave my name, phone number and a vivid description of the circumstances that arose to warrant my shoulder surgery to a woman she thought I'd be a good match with. She even told the woman to "not tell anyone because this is a huge violation." It goes both ways.
    • arkades 7y ago
      Oh, don't misunderstand me. Their understanding is alllllll full of false negatives and false positives, absolutely. But I was specifically referring, as a pain point, to how often offices use HIPAA as an excuse to not do things patients want them to do. I'm a physician that has worked in health policy. I get very, very volubly angry when a front desk puts me off with "that's a HIPAA violation" and it isn't. It's "we don't want to be bothered doing things that convenience the patient, and here's an excuse that sounds like it's out of our hands." When they share information they're not supposed to, it's often - not always, but often - at least with the underlying intention of doing right by the patient, as opposed to just trying to get rid of them.
    • mehrdadn 7y ago
      How did you find out?!
      • alexbanks 7y ago
        The girl told me.
    • papln 7y ago
      What kind of match? Romantic match? What was your reaction when a stranger called you for a date?
• inapis 7y ago
  Ha. And here (India) I was asked to sign 7 pieces of paper by DHL/Bluedart to send a piece of package across the country and also asked to submit an identity proof. Even the government doesn't make me sign this much when issuing a passport and the Indian government is infamous for its bureaucracy. Rules and the regulators enforcing them sometimes do not make any sense at all.
• froindt 7y ago
  I had the same thing happen to me on an ER trip. "Here's a little Crystal (brand) signature pad. Now I'll name off the document titles and have you sign your name." No! It already feels illegitimate when I sign a PDF with a touchscreen computer over a paper signature. There's no way for me to know precisely what I'm signing unless I have paper in front of me. Even then, without acknowledgement on every sheet and/or me receiving a copy at the end, it's entirely possible for them to swap Page 3 out and for me to suddenly have agreed to something else entirely! I ended up getting paper copies of the documents and signed those.
• schreiaj 7y ago
  I've never experienced one that wouldn't let me read it before I signed it. I thought it was particularly interesting that I was referred to another doctor inside the same medical system sharing an EHR (ie they already HAD my data)and I still had to sign aa new HIPAA form less than a week later. That was the single time I didn't insist on reading the whole thing, I asked them if they were the exact forms used across the entire hospital system, I double checked one of them, and then just signed the rest. My real fun experience with this was when I bought a house, one thing said I had to move in within 30 days, another 60 days, and another 15 days. There were also various other date discrepancies on when certain things had been completed and, they had used my full name (first, middle, last) in some places and just first/last in others. Man everyone was mad I was reading everything before I signed it though.
  • Declanomous 7y ago
    I read everything put in front of me when I bought my car. Boy was the finance guy pissed, cause it took me like an hour, and he makes his living upselling add-ons and stuff. I'm also a pretty fast reader, so it is pretty obvious that they absolutely expect you to not read whatever it is you are signing, because I assume that it would take most other people well over an hour to read.
    • SilasX 7y ago
      You're my hero. That's what I wish I'd done the last time I bought a new car from a dealership. They knew I was coming in to buy that day and could have given me the paperwork on the warranties etc to review, but instead decided to spring it on me just when I thought I was about to walk off with the car. They also asked me to sign a form that said "I have inspected the car" before I'd seen it at all. Sickens me.
    • mszkoda 7y ago
      I did the same and do it every time. I know their job is actually just to sell warranties and after-market products and the paperwork is a side-job, but I just can't spend $20-30k+ and sign a bunch of papers without reading them and taking some time. Each of these places have their own branded contracts and similar, but unique documents that look like they typed up and copied some word document they wrote 7 years ago and have never re-printed. And the descriptions they give are usually a couple works... This one is a power of attorney, it lets us handle title work for your car on your behalf. I had my title in-hand and signed it over to them, so I was really confused why that was necessary among several other things.
• __david__ 7y ago
  I'll one up this. I recently went to Kaiser for a procedure and they handed me the signature thing and said, "you need your signature to indicate that you've checked-in". So I signed it. As the final part of check-in they handed me a stack of papers and said, "here's what you signed!" I was stunned because they never gave any indication that the signature was for some sort of contract/legal form! Perhaps I should have suspected, but it still seemed really underhanded… If they had, I would have insisted on reading it first. Luckily, reading it afterward it was something I would have signed anyway, but come on!
  • pushpop 7y ago
    I can’t speak for the US legal system but in the UK that would instantly void the contract. You have to be aware of what you’re signing.
    • matrix 7y ago
      This is also the case in US. Contract formation requires that the signing party has an opportunity to read the contract. If the contract is subject to litigation and the signing party can show they did not have an opportunity to read it, the contract will be thrown out. It is especially frowned upon to misrepresent the contract ("Don't worry, it's just some routine boilerplate") and not provide a copy before the person signs it.
      • TomMarius 7y ago
        How do you show that they didn't tell you?
        • dboreham 7y ago
          This could be why "serious contracts" have a place on each page for you to initial.
        • sjy 7y ago
          You swear to it in writing or in the witness box.
• maxxxxx 7y ago
  They use the same procedure for billing. First do the procedure and then find out how much it costs. No information upfront.
  • Gibbon1 7y ago
    Yeah if any other industry besides health care pulled that people would go to prison. Seems to be a thing that doctors like to point out how much more important they are than auto mechanics. I think the auto mechanic that fixed my transmission almost killed me. Because on SR 108 the transmission wouldn't go into low.
• thrpythrwaway33 7y ago
  Similar horror story. When I went to get therapy for depression, they gave me a contract to read and sign for therapy agreement. I got to page 11 which said that I will not consume alcoholic beverages while under treatment at all. It seemed to be a rather overbroad ask for what I was coming for, so I objected (over their secure PM system). They tried to object that "well, you need to follow your doctor's directions because there can be interactions between the medicine and alcohol." I said "The clause doesn't say 'I will follow the psychiatrist's direction about drug interactions.' It says I will unconditionally refrain from all alcohol." Then the main doctor entered the thread and really blew my mind. He said, basically, a) no one in 5 years has objected to that clause, and b) it's common to have a clinic policy like and it's like an EULA. b) was weird because EULA's are known for being notoriously abusive. a) was weird because he seems to genuinely think it's no big deal that either 1) no one is reading that clause, or 2) all of his patients are apparently teetotalers. (I also felt it was particularly disturbing that he was exploiting the bandwagon effect to intimidate me into signing.) So I said, if you're comfortable with the clause meaning the interpretation earlier in chat, that it just means to follow directions about alcohol interactions with meds, then I'll sign, and he agreed.
  • papln 7y ago
    > So I said, if you're comfortable with the clause meaning the interpretation earlier in chat, that it just means to follow directions about alcohol interactions with meds, then I'll sign, and he agreed. Did you document that modification in in writing or recording?
    • thrpythrwaway33 7y ago
      All of this conversation was over their secure internet chat system, so it was logged that way.
      • penagwin 7y ago
        You'll need a personal copy of that conversation if this were to come up. We don't know what their retention policy is, or if they'll mysteriously be unable to find it in a court case.
• URSpider94 7y ago
  This is actually a violation of HIPAA law. My wife regularly schools hospital and doctors office employees all the time on their consent practices (she has a degree in public health). She will even call the hospital’s IRB to file formal complaints. Things we’ve heard: “We will have you sign the consent form after the procedure when it’s more convenient for you” “The first page doesn’t apply to you (when it clearly does)” “Sign here to acknowledge receipt of our privacy policy (which we haven’t given you)”
  • differentView 7y ago
    So what's the punishment for what the parent comment described?
    • LurkersWillLurk 7y ago
      Each violation of HIPAA can carry a fine between $100 and $50,000 per violation. The hard part is that many people don't know what their privacy rights are, or to whom they go when their rights are violated (in this case, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services).
      • arkades 7y ago
        And that OCR is also a load of shit. I had an office emailing me their appointment data for a patient; I don't know if we had a similar email or something. I responded the first two times I received it that it was being sent in error, and to please stop, for the sake of everyone concerned. On occasions 3 and 4 I attempted to contact the practice. Both times I was sent to the manager's voicemail, where I left messages that were never returned. After a half-dozen of these occasions, I contacted OCR on behalf of the patient (you can file an OCR complaint on someone else's behalf), specifically referencing the fact that although the privacy violation is not significant, their repeated violation with no effort to stop is. I enclosed screen shots of the repeated emails I had sent the practice, and the repeated privacy-violating emails I'd gotten from them. OCR said they'd get in contact with the practice and help them implement a technical solution to stop contacting me, and could I please give them my email address to blacklist, and asked if that solution was satisfactory. I said, no, no that's not fucking satisfactory. They could have fixed the email issue a year ago; it doesn't require technical assistance from the government. While I appreciate trying to assist small practices in remedying technical defects rather than just being punitive, this was exactly the time to be punitive - when the technical defect is simple and easy to remedy ("we have the wrong contact info; update it"), and there was plenty of opportunity to remedy and they willfully continued to engage in the activity. And blacklisting my email address does absolutely nothing to protect the next patient's privacy. A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail that basically restated what had been in the email, and that no further action would be taken. (Before anyone says "but you got no more information than you would have had if you'd been sitting in the waiting room when the guy came for his appointment": HIPAA has an exception that basically says "reveal the minimum you need to run a functional clinic, but yeah, obviously you need to run a functional clinic." So things like "patients in the waiting room" is exempt from HIPAA because, well, you won't be able to keep an office open if you can't keep a waiting room full. That same information emailed out to a random stranger - that is, absolutely not needed to be shared with me to provide routine care - does not share that exemption.)
• papln 7y ago
  AIUI, legally, a signature isn't itself inherently binding to anything, neither necessary nor sufficient. You don't even need a signature to form a binding contract. The signature is merely evidence that you were physically present and signed the document, since a signature is generally (if farcically) considered to be something only you can create. The contract that the signature is attached to is another evidentiary question, which is why some multi-page documents ask for a signature or at least initials on every page. Now, if the signature page you signed says, "I have read to and agree to Document X", that's evidence of... what it says, but there's still the very open question what are the contents of Document X, unless "X" is something like an SHA hash of a document, or a name and date/version of a document maintained by a well-trusted escrow agent.
• TallGuyShort 7y ago
  I don't understand how signing on a pad that is detached from the form is enforceable. They captured an image of your signature and tell you what it is you're signing. They then take that image and attach it to the document. How is that any stronger proof than a claim of an oral contract?
• neilv 7y ago
  That's surprising to me, because I usually see HIPAA taken very seriously. (I think the problems are more likely to be that personnel don't understand information technology and how fragile and untrustworthy our own "tech" field's work is today, not that they don't take HIPAA seriously.) Related: On check-in for a doctor appointment, I was given a routine consent form to opt-in to some kind of sharing of info (for research purposes, or something like that). I instead checked the checkbox on the form that explicitly did not consent. The person at the front desk didn't seem to quite know what to do with the form when I didn't check the checkbox that was expected, but they accepted the form after a confused pause, and hopefully it was processed correctly.
  • RandomBacon 7y ago
    A lot of medical forms will ask more info than they need (such as Social Security Number). I rarely go to a new doctor, but when I do, I usually leave about half the forms untouched, and the other half, half-filled out. Never had any any issues with the staff. Your mileage may vary.
• dboreham 7y ago
  I've had the exact same thing happen at a US hospital. Probably the same software. I've also had a similar experience at my kids' school: By signing I agree to abide by their network acceptable use policy (no copy of said policy to be found).
• ridaj 7y ago
  Next time maybe just write "not signing sight unseen" on that electronic signature pad. Clerk likely won't care what you scratch down!
• kerouanton 7y ago
  You could also "sign" using a random figure, not your real signature, after all. No? Nothing prevents you to do so, legally speaking.
  • NikkiA 7y ago
    You mean other than 'perjury' when they ask you in court if that was your signature? No, it doesn't HAVE to match your usual signature, but that's not the actual point of a signature anyway.
    • alasdair_ 7y ago
      Write "I don't agree" or something similar as your signature?
• hsksbr 7y ago
  Fun related story. My best friend was given a PIP from his manager. Company wanted him out for political reasons, told him he had to sign, except all of the reasons in the PIP were fabricated. He stapled a page to the back before turning it in saying that he disagrees, but is required to sign, and thus wishes to comply with the requirement to sign. They fired him immediately for refusing to remove the extra page, tried to deny him unemployment benefits saying that he chose to quit by not signing. The case went to unemployment court and he won. He got all his benefits, company had to pay a huge fine.
  • freedrock87 7y ago
    Whats a PIP?
    • OkGoDoIt 7y ago
      Professional improvement plan. Basically when a large company wants to fire you they often put you on a PIP first which specifies areas where you are underperforming and metrics for improvement and a timeframe where you have to demonstrate improvement. In practice it’s often just the first step in the firing process to cover HR and document everything. So if the friend took issue with the claims being made in the PIP about underperformance, it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to sign it as-is.
      • Aeolun 7y ago
        > Basically when a large company wants to fire you they often put you on a PIP first In most countries I am aware of it is a requirement for being able to fire someone.
        • x0x0 7y ago
          In the US it highly likely means you're getting fired and they're now documenting reasons. Well, "reasons". The reasons don't need to be accurate; they just need to be not provably inaccurate and to be well documented.
      • 7y ago
• ben_jones 7y ago
  I had to go to the hospital for an emergency ultrasound recently because my physician thought I might have appendicitis. I was pretty nervous, and the nurse took me into a private office and had me sign a bunch of paper work (and pay on the spot via debit card) for the procedure (~$900). I just wanted to get through it, so I signed everything in a hurry. Mid-procedure the technician asked me what I was there for, she then point blank told me that what she was doing (and what I had already paid for) was really ineffective on adults and that it was almost a guaranteed waste of time. Results came back inconclusive and life went back to normal. How do a trust a doctor, nurse, or hospital administrator, when the whole systems seems to OPTIMIZE for situations like the one I just mentioned? I guess I'm supposed to call bullshit on everything they tell me, assume malice, and spend a large amount of money/time chasing down bills and second opinions. And this is with private insurance through my employer.
  • jdmichal 7y ago
    The chances are that you could have simply told them you are not paying until it's billed through your insurance. My insurance card actually has that written on it. Hospitals especially always try to collect up front, but accept refusals when told to bill the insurance first.
• ClassyJacket 7y ago
  I had to let someone into my work to do generator maintenance the other day, and he handed me an iPad to sign that said literally nothing on the screen except 'signature'. He seemed surprised that I wasn't going to sign something I couldn't read.
• dillonmckay 7y ago
  So, I unfortunately learned this from a HR attorney, but signing ‘Refuse to sign’ is acceptable, and mostly goes unnoticed, especially if written in cursive.
  • smcl 7y ago
    Is that "(I) Refuse to sign" (as in, you're writing it on your own behalf) or "Refused to sign" (as in, you're making it look like the form submitter filled it out themselves).
• soulofmischief 7y ago
  My bank likes to disable my credit card for fraud each month when I make the same exact <10$ international transaction to the same exact company. After months of this and a half an hour on the phone they told me I could just lift the auto-ban for the particular country so that I wouldn't have to spend half an hour on hold every single month for a recurring payment. I said sure, and I was told to just send an email saying I approved of this just to confirm. The representative quickly tried to end the call after that, and I had to make her back up and explain exactly what I was confirming. She wouldn't just come out with it plainly, saying it was a simple lift of the ban for that country. After enough prodding, she spilled that my confirmation meant that any transaction coming from that country would be considered pre-approved and not eligible for fraud prevention. I would be stuck with whatever charge came from anywhere an entire country, with no way to fight it. She got angry with me for having a problem with this and caught an attitude, saying that it was unusual for people to either want to make international transactions at all or for them to care if they pre-approved an entire country for all payments. She couldn't understand what was wrong with this. As far as I know... that's not even legal?
  • crooked-v 7y ago
    Sounds like it's time to switch credit card providers.
    • soulofmischief 7y ago
      This is my local credit union. I do not politically support any of the major banks and so that is not an option unfortunately.
  • iliketosleep 7y ago
    They should be able to whitelist transactions to that particular company on your account, rather than whitelisting transactions for an entire country. From my personal experience, the credit card anti-fraud measures are quite advanced and offer a high level of granularity. It's one of the few aspects of banking I've been highly satisfied with. I suspect you're just dealing with very poor customer service.
• dockd 7y ago
  The last time I went to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription, their point of sale system asked me to acknowledge whether I spoke with/declined to speak with the pharmacist, before I got to speak with the pharmacist.
  • Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    To be fair, you probably could have simply waited to pay for the medicine until after you spoke to the pharmacist. If Rite Aid's system is like the pharmacy I worked at in the US, it was impossible to pay for a prescription until you sign. The vast majority of folks picking up prescriptions do not talk to a pharmacist.
• nameisu 7y ago
  I fell for it. they won't print it after signing also. they told me the systems is not letting them go back to print.
• m463 7y ago
  I assure you "Nobody at the office seemed to understand here what my objection was" is false. They probably all understood quite well, but they stuck to the script (either unofficially to make their job smoother, or officially). It's hard these days to know if you're talking to an innocent person or a corporate script. A friend told me the inside story about a call answering service. This is a service that answers the late night infomercial numbers. They are very quick to take your information to buy the thing, but then they try upselling you or cross-selling you other stuff. EVERYTHING is scripted. "Oh, but other people didn't listen to these fabulous offers, and had to call back", etc. So here's the thing. The people are required to follow the script, they cannot deviate. The ONLY exit to the script that would prevent them from being fired was "I will CANCEL my order unless you stop."
• sametmax 7y ago
  If they get stuborn and don't wanna provide the docs I was supposed to read, I manually edit the form to state that they will give it to me later, and sign+date the edit as well. Usually everybody is happy.