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Would You Be Mad if the Nurse Lied and Said she Gave You Counseling When she Didn't? What Should I Do?


I make a huge error in judgment and went to Planned Parenthood to have the STD treated that I caught from a sexual assault. The nurse completed botched the treatment but that is another story.

In my medical file under "counseling", she checked off the following: smoking risks, safer sex, STI Risk Reduction, HIV Risk Reduction, Emgergency Contraception.

However, she NEVER gave me any type of counseling on those topics at all. She completely lied.

I then made a complaint with the "Privacy Official" at the regional Planned Parenthood office. However, she didn't seem to care at all. Her response was "OK. Do you want me to mail you some pamphlets on safer sex then?"

She didn't think it was a big deal at all!!! She thought I was complaining because I wanted education on those topics. Instead, I was outraged because the nurse falsified my medical file.

Should I go to her supervisor???? This makes me mad. How can nurses get away with this? Also, I found it insulting because I am not sexually active and I got the STD from a sexual assault. I don't need counseling on safer sex.

First and foremost, Planned Parenthood is an organization that puts its own self interest first. They aren't likely to discipline one of their own unless they feel that their employee is hurting THEM (and minor falsification of medical documents doesn't fall into that category, as it only hurts YOU, a "mere" patient).
I can think of 2 possible reasons the nurse did that:
1) She's lazy, and just checks off the same boxes on every patient's chart, regardless of whether she does it or not. That's not good, but it's not as bad as...
2) She's deliberately "padding" the note so she can get paid more for doing more work. Healthcare providers get paid at different levels based on the services they perform, and she might be trying to make it look like she did more work so the insurance company will pay her more. If she did it to you, she's doing it to a lot of patients.
Without you knowing the nuances of medical billing, it's unlikely that you could figure out if your bill was appropriate yourself.
I see three possible courses of action for you:
1) Do nothing about it.
2) Report her to your state's nursing board. Falsifying medical records IS a big deal, even if the Planned Parenthood representative thinks otherwise. (You might also tell them about the botched treatment, while you're at it.)
3) Get a chart reviewer to look at a copy of the note from the chart and compare it to the billing code. If they don't match (or wouldn't match if the falsified portions were left out), report her to your insurance company and the state nursing board for fraud.
Regardless, I encourage you to focus on getting REAL counseling to help you get past this terrible thing you have suffered.

i believe that is called malpractice and yes you should definately take it further..she could lose her job for that.

Hell yes go to her supervisor. There's no way they should be getting away with that, especially since most PPs funding depends on the numbers they present every year for what they counsel/treat people for. It's outright lying and they know it, and other people should too.

If they're doing it to you, they're doing it to other people who are probably too scared to speak up or don't know how to. I say if they aren't doing their job correctly, call them out.

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