They can if you allow them. Yes they can. I can allow my doctor to give my wife or my employer my medical information if I want to. I would need that in writing and under some interpretations of the law, that still wouldn’t be good enough. It would be certain situations in which or appropriate but many situations in which it would not be. This is one more thing that people on the right just keep getting wrong repeatedly. HIPAA was meant to keep medical providers and insurance providers from sharing your medical info without your approval. Your neighbor can tell everyone that you have AIDS. Your coworkers can tell everyone that you have the flu. They can ask you at Walmart or target, you don’t have to answer. But that actually has nothing to do with HIPAA. Watching conservatives cite HIPAA when discussing grocery stores has been so fucking embarrassing for the last 10 or so months. That has nothing to do with that law. Nothing. These are people who called liberals dumb at the drop of a hat. The same liberals that repeatedly stomp them into the ground on just about every issue by outsmarting them and outmaneuvering them. They talk in arrogant self-righteous terms about a law they don’t even understand. My God does the right embarrass me sometimes. Shamefully stupid and ignorant. The idea that Kroger or Safeway has to abide by HIPAA.... *puke*.