appropriateness?
 

It is a appropriate, at park, for another parent, whom you are acquainted with (your kids are in the same class, but you are not really social friends), who is sitting on a park bench next to your four year old, talking to her, innocently, to ask her if it is okay to have a drink of her bottle of water, and then take a swig and give it back to her? Or is this sort of creepily unsanitarily uncool?

appropriateness?
 

Uncool. It would be OK with a younger kid, let's say two, to pretend to drink all the water with the cap on.

appropriateness?
 

don't even humor him. He and I were having an argument about whether his mom's behavior when we were growing up was okay (any of the stuff with the football team is out of bounds!). What he didn't mention is that when his mom gave my little sis the water back, mom stuck it down sis's pants. Poll: Given that, would you be a character reference at Mrs. P's parole hearing?

appropriateness?
 

Gross.

The Lexling may or may not have drug resistant staph, which is scary and disgusting and also scary. After something like that, you may want to suggest to the offending parent that your child is being treated for it also and you suggest she call her doctor immediately and wash her mouth out with anti-germ gel.

On a separate note - this germ crap is scary shit.

appropriateness?
 

I'm sorry to hear about this. I hope everything turns out to be a false alarm, and if not, that the treatment goes well.

appropriateness?
 

I walked out for 5min today at 4:55 to go get the mail and the pediatrician's office called and left no message and of course it was too late to call back. Doesn't bode well, though; usually if it is bad news, they want to tell you in person.

appropriateness?
 

Not necessarily. I have gotten several messages from docs saying "call me back" only to be told the test results were negative or fine or normal or whatever.

I think that the responsible docs don't want to leave messages on answering machines that they don't know for sure are accessible only to the patient.

appropriateness?
 

Given the overweening sense of caution HIPAA has spawned, doctors are shy about giving information over the phone unless they know for a fact the person receiving the message will be the proper party. I go to doctors a lot, and they won't give test results to my wife, even thought they've known her for years.

It was positive. So we'll be avoiding other humans for the next 2w.

appropriateness?
 

Ask for their authorization form, and specifically authorize them to give test results to your wife. It may help.

So says the HIPAA person.

So sorry to hear that. I hope the rest of you can stay healthy. Hard enough to take care of a sick little one when you are well, worse when you are not . . .

appropriateness?
 

I was timing you.

appropriateness?
 

Yesterday, our pediatrician's billing office said they couldn't give me a copy of the itemized billing statement for my son's recent visit that they had sent to our ins co (which I wanted so that I could cross-check it against the EOB from of the ins co) because of HIPAA. I'm guessing they think they need him (the 5 year old) to sign an authorization form allowing them to give paperwork to me.

appropriateness?
 

Heh. Does your kid share your last name?

appropriateness?
 

I appreciate the HIPAA person's wisdom and advice, and I acknowledge she is right in theory. Unfortunately, the nurses and staff at the doctor's office are not HIPAA people. They may not know this.