HIPPA violation?

[pugjulius]

Hi - I work for an agency of the federal government and am often posted overseas. While overseas, the employer provides health care practitioners, who are also employees of my agency, to assist us with healthcare needs. Can these practicioners disclose the contents of my conversations with them to my supervisors, who are also posted overseas? Are these providers covered entities? My gut tells me that this is a violation but I am not sure. I am not in the military.
Also, can you be compensated monetarily for HIPAA violations if there was a demonstrable injury to you as a result of the violation?

 

[presutin]

What specifically happened?

 

[pugjulius]

It's a long story that I will try to summarize. I was working at a Consulate overseas. My significant other, who is not an American, began having angry outbursts. There were two seperate incidents - after the first one the Consul asked the nurse at the Consulate to speak with me and also the nurse at another Embassy. Unbenounced to me, all the information that I spoke to the nurse about was shared with the Consulate and Embassy managment. After the second indident, when we had a four week old infant, the same thing happened with the health practicioners at both places speaking with me and sharing information with the management. They had been sharing information in between the two incidents as well. Partially as a result of this, post management decided that I should leave but did not inform me of this. They put my infant son and I on a plane telling us that we were going on a vacation for 3 weeks and then once I got to the States they told me that I couldn't return for my own safety and I was left homeless with an infant, living out of a rental car.
I have been trying to get medical records, emails etc and no one will give me much of anything. What made me think of HPAA is that several of the emails that they did send me from the health practitioner overseas had all of the "cc" lines blacked out! This is what made me think of HIPPA. I have asked for the unredacted version, to no avail. I also have an EEO complaint pending about all of this.

 

[pugjulius]

I also wanted to make clear that they did not fire me - they reassigned me to another post six months after tricking me into leaving from the first place.