The Problems at Planned Parenthood website documents lawsuits, failed health inspections, bad reviews, and complications at Planned Parenthood facilities throughout the country.
Multiple Planned Parenthood facilities in California have been cited for privacy violations.
These violations may not be as extreme or shocking as untrained staff doing medical procedures (found elsewhere in California) or doctors operating with bloodstained instruments (in Arizona), but they have the potential to cause turmoil in patients’ lives.
At Planned Parenthood in Riverside, a male staff member who wanted to date a patient looked in her chart and accessed her phone number.
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According to the report, he accessed the female patient’s records without permission to get her cell phone number. He then texted the patient and asked if he could continue to text her. The patient reported this breach of privacy and unwanted contact to the clinic.
Two other privacy incidents were also documented at this facility.
A staff member placed the wrong label on a health access program card, allowing a patient to see the name, date of birth, and the medical record number of another patient.
Staff mailed a patient’s lab results to the wrong address.
You can see the documentation here:
In Chico, California, a Planned Parenthood employee looked up the private medical records of her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend was a patient. The employee wanted to know details about the ex-girlfriend’s sexual health and history. When accused, the employee admitted she had wanted to know if the ex-girlfriend had an STD.
The staff member who reported the violation said that the employee in question had the file open at her desk and was reading it “like a magazine.”
In Santa Barbara, an employee accessed the health records of another employee who had also been a patient of Planned Parenthood. The records were accessed without the patient’s permission and without authorization.
Another incident happened in Seaside.
A patient came in who was a family member of a clinic employee. The employee looked at and read the patient’s medical records without authorization or medical purpose. She accessed her family member’s records 17 times over the course of a day.
A patient submitted a complaint about the Planned Parenthood clinic in San Rafael.
The complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights, stated:
I just opened up a bag in which my medication was in, that I was given at the San Rafael Planned Parenthood clinic yesterday afternoon. There is someone else’s medication in it—full name, Medical Record number, and DOB. This obviously means she has my medication, and is aware of my full name, Medical Record number, and DOB.
Considering this medication is for something very sensitive and I was promised privacy in the matter, I am beyond nervous and anxious about someone else having/knowing my full name, Medical Record number, DOB, and the type of medication I was prescribed.
At Chula Vista, an inspection found that staff spoke openly and loudly about the reason a patient came to the clinic in a manner that allowed other patients to overhear, a breach of confidentiality.
In addition, two patients with the same first name came to the facility on the same day. One patient was mistakenly given the other patient’s receipt, which had confidential information. This information included fees and services given, and it had the patient’s address on it.
Another incident happened in Coachella.
The facility sent a notification of a positive chlamydia test to the wrong patient. The letter was mailed to one patient but was intended for another. One patient’s address was written on the outside of the envelope, but the letter inside was addressed to a different patient. The letter contained the patient’s name, personal details, and information about the STD.
In Concord, staff sent two patients’ records, containing their medical histories, to the wrong hospitals.
On three different occasions at the facility in El Cajon, patients were given or sent home with medication intended for another patient. The medications were labeled with the other patients’ names and health information.
This wasn’t just a privacy violation. It was also a medical risk, because there was the risk of a patient mistakenly taking the wrong medicine.
See documents here:
In Escondido, a patient was given three medications that were intended for a different patient, posing a health risk for the patient.
Also in Escondido, a patient was emailed another patient’s personal medical information, including test results, medical history, diagnosis, and medications.
See:
CA Escondido complaints 2023 & 2024
In Fresno, staff put another patient’s label on a patient’s chart. Therefore, the patient saw another patient’s personal information, including her name and date of birth.
In Moreno Valley, two patients were tested for STDs. Patient A was sent Patient B’s results, and Patient B was sent Patient A’s results. Included in the letters were the wrong patient’s name, address, and documentation of a positive chlamydia test.
See:
In Napa, a patient filed a complaint saying that a receptionist breached her confidentiality by letting her cousin know she was pregnant.
There were multiple privacy violations at the Planned Parenthood facility in Orange.
A staff member who was related to the father of a patient’s child (a relative of the patient’s current or former boyfriend/partner) accessed the patient’s chart on four separate occasions without authorization. The staff member also revealed the patient’s private health information to others. When questioned, the staff member acknowledged that she looked up the records out of “curiosity.”
On multiple occasions, patients were handed urine specimen cups with other patients’ names and dates of birth on them.
A physician’s assistant gave a patient another patient’s prescription, allowing the patient to see the other patient’s name and the medicine prescribed to her. The prescription also included the other patient’s phone number, address, and birth date.
A staff member handed a patient the wrong paperwork, revealing to her another patient’s name and birth date.
Three different times, staff handed a patient another patient’s Family Pact ID card, revealing the other patient’s name, date of birth, and ID number.
A patient asked for her records, and the printout included the records of another patient. This breach of privacy was especially serious because, in addition to name, date of birth, address, phone number, and medical history, it revealed part of the other patient’s social security number.
A patient was given the wrong login information for the clinic’s patient portal. This meant that she had full access to another patient’s records.
A staff member left a packet of papers with the personal information of multiple patients in the bathroom, where they were found and turned in by another patient. These papers contained names, phone numbers, addresses, and in one case, a social security number.
Also revealed were income, date of last menstrual period, and family size of some patients. Any patient or staff in the clinic had access to this information, which was left unsecured and unattended.
The medical records of one patient were faxed to a stranger rather than the intended party. A staff member entered the wrong fax number. This constituted a breach of privacy.
Staff attempted to impede the investigation into the breach of privacy mentioned above about the patient portal. They refused to cooperate with investigators and wouldn’t grant them access to medical records as required by law.
See:
There were also multiple violations in San Bernardino.
The clinic accidentally faxed a patient’s personal information to the wrong fax number, creating a breach of privacy. The information included the patient’s date of birth, phone number, address, medical history, family medical history, past surgical history, weight, height, medications, sexual history, results of an HIV test, and drug use history. All this information was sent to a stranger.
Clinic staff mistakenly mailed a patient’s records to an “outside entity.” The records included the patient’s health history as well as their name, address, and date of birth.
A staff member accessed the records of a patient whom she knew and looked up her medical history. The employee examined her acquaintance’s records on four separate occasions.
The employee learned details of the patient’s financial status, procedures, notes, medications, and treatments. The staff member was also accused of accessing the records of three other patients, but wasn’t officially cited.
A staff member compromised the privacy of 19 patients when she took a screenshot of the clinic’s schedule and texted it to her boyfriend. The schedule showed the names and phone numbers of the patients and the reasons they came to the facility.
See:
CA San Bernardino complaints 2022-2023
At the Planned Parenthood facility in Thousand Oaks, one patient’s private medical information was mistakenly mailed to another patient, causing a breach of privacy. This information included the results of tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
Some of these violations were deliberate misconduct, and some were accidental, but all had the potential to create problems for patients who wanted to maintain confidentiality about personal medical information regarding sexual health, identity, and reproductive history.
LifeNews Note: Sarah Terzo covered the abortion issue for over 13 years as a professional journalist. In this capacity, she has written nearly a thousand articles about abortion and read over 850 books on the topic. She has been researching and writing about abortion since attending The College of New Jersey (class of 1997) where she minored in Women’s Studies. This article originally appeared on Sarah Terzo’s Substack. You can read more of her articles here.
