In 2017, two of Northern Wyoming’s largest healthcare agencies, Gottsche Rehabilitation and Wellness, which operate five clinics across Wyoming, and Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital (HSCMH), now known as Hot Springs Health, found themselves in hot water when Hot Springs Health Physician, and Gottsche Medical Director, Dr. W. Travis Bomengen (Red Rock Family Practice), conspired with Gottsche CEO, Cheryl Ann Pebbles Shero, to intentionally leak a patient’s Protected Health Information (PHI). While some of the facts of this illustrious, such as if Cheryl Shero expressly solicited the information from Dr. W. Travis Bomengen or if he provided it without coercion, remain shrouded in mystery. There are known facts via archived evidence that suggest both parties acted with intentional disregard for patient care. In later articles we will discuss all of the nuances of this case, but for now, let’s focus on what HIPAA violations mean, and what they could mean to you. In 1996 the U.S. Government established the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The most common feature of this law is to protect patient’s confidential records. HIPAA laws are designed to go above and beyond simply saying a healthcare provider cannot just refrain from unethically disclosing PHI, but also provides for procedures to allow patients to advocate on their own behalf and have access to their medical records, as well as monitor who else has access.
The patient whose PHI was leaked by Dr. W. Travis Bomengen was initially unaware that their PHI had been leaked. The hospital was well aware of the fact that the patient had privacy concerns due to Gottsche therapists, whom disliked the patient for personal reasons, having access to hospital record keeping software. While a patient in the hospital, Dr. W. Travis Bomengen informed Cheryl Shero of the patient’s hospitalization status and the reason for the medical intervention. According to HIPAA laws, this impermissible disclosure was then further perpetuated when Cheryl Shero, on two separate occasions, unethically leaked the patient’s PHI to Gottsche’ s then Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). To this day, that SLP remains the only healthcare provider aware of the impermissible disclosure to ethically and legally report the misconduct. Initial reports, including reports of retaliation, also in violation of HIPAA laws, were all made by the patient, and resulted in HIPAA violation transaction number: CU-17-272918.
While this violation ultimately addressed the issues that patient information was accessed for unauthorized use, it does not however address the issue of the information further being leaked, and the subsequent negligence in not reporting. Months of retaliation for the reporting of the initial impermissible disclosures would be carried out against the SLP by several Gottsche employees including board member Gene Boehmke, and Business Manager, Karissa Williams, in addition to Cheryl Shero. Details of this retaliation will be discussed in future articles, but for reference, took place mainly in the form of meetings and side conversations held on Gottsche property at. Luckily for our patient, these meetings, pursuant to Wyoming Statute §7-3-702 were recorded. Unluckily for our patient, “one party” conversations where only excised portions were available, are inadmissible as evidence at the federal level which includes agencies such as the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) whom are charged with investigating and punishing HIPAA violations. At the time of the reporting, which OCR requires takes place no more than 6 months after knowledge or suspicion of the violation, the patient, due to relentless retaliation from Gottsche, was advised by legal counsel not to disseminate at that time, any portion of the audio recordings to protect future legal remedies. It is not uncommon for government agencies to require to that a complete recording be submitted with excised portions to determine relevancy and accuracy.
In total, there exists over eighteen hours of “secret” recordings of various topics, including solicitation of government officials and other healthcare professionals at both Red Rock Family Practice and Hot Springs Health to help make the victim of the HIPAA violation “shut up.” Intermingled though in those threats were admissions explicitly made by Cheryl Shero that she was in fact given confidential information from the patient’s medical without consent. Because those recordings were being preserved for other reasons and to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, they were inadmissible as excised portions only as evidence in the HIPAA case in which the CEO of Gottsche lied to federal authorities about the impermissible disclosure. Thus, narrowly escaping up to 1.5 million dollars in fines, and up to ten years jail time.
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