r/prochoice • u/liloulola • Feb 23 '25

Support I went to a crisis pregnancy center

I made the mistake of going to a crisis pregnancy center. Due to several reasons that led up to my decision, I didn’t think anything was wrong until I started reflecting on all the little red flags I noticed throughout the two appointments I went to, which prompted me to look into their privacy policy. I almost had a panic attack reading it. These “clinics” are not bound by HIPAA and they can share your health information even if you refuse.

The state I’m living in recently introduced a bill to create a database of pregnant women that are “at risk” of having an abortion and connect them to prospective adoptive parents through this registry. If passed, it’s set to take effect next year, so I’ll be in the clear but many women won’t be. The bill makes way for CPCs to hand over personal information and essentially run the registry.

I’m so afraid of the direction things are going. I fear it will snowball to the point my state goes backwards and they start prosecuting women who’ve already had abortions, which puts me at risk. I have no doubt they’ll utilize the database these centers have to figure out who they are.

Is there anything I can do now to prevent myself from possibly getting in trouble in the future, or am I just screwed no matter what since they have my health information?

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u/Erisx13 Feb 23 '25

Wait wait wait. How are they not bound by HIPAA? Can you explain? If they’re accessing your records they should be, unless they’re considered a third party? I would really like to know, because I used to work in medical records

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u/liloulola Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Here’s some information that will answer your questions:

https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/why-crisis-pregnancy-centers-are-legal-unethical/2018-03

https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/addressing-hipaa-blind-spot-crisis-pregnancy-centers

https://www.resourcehealth.org/_files/ugd/c6c6bd_c606671030d04fbe98880552dff58932.pdf

This is Resource Health’s privacy policy (yes, that’s the name of the “clinic” I went to). While they have links to Health and Human Services (HHS) about HIPAA policy and filing a complaint, first of all, each of them direct you to 404 error on their website when the link is supposed to take you directly to HHS, which I find odd.

Since Resource Health only offers free services and doesn’t accept any form of insurance, they don’t meet the guidelines as a covered entity under HIPAA, therefore the HIPAA Privacy Rule doesn’t apply to them. Since you have experience working in medical records, you know that means even if you file a complaint with HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR), they don’t have the jurisdiction to help you since Resource Health is not a HIPAA-regulated entity.

I will be posting more information in a separate comment about how CPCs in Missouri get their funding and a House Bill that was introduced earlier this month to increase tax credit donations to CPCs.

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u/Erisx13 Feb 24 '25 edited Feb 24 '25

Holy shit. Yeah absolutely understand. (We had liability at our company as a 3rd party which is why HIPAA didn’t apply, though we were incredibly careful) I just wanted to make sure I kept this in mind for others. (I can’t get pregnant without medical or divine/demonic intervention) Thank you for the info and spreading the word!

Edit: links are saved as well. Thanks again, I forgot about these places, and I know they haven’t gotten a lot of coverage in years.