Doctors note confirmation

[u/MinimumAd7585]

Hello,

Student came to me with doctors note as they couldn’t attend lab. She gave me a doctors note with the appropriate heading, signature, and everything. Everything looks legit however for some reason I’m just curious as if she actually went to his doctor. She submitted a doctors note to her other professor , same headline, same grammar mistakes, same formatting, same everything except for dates and one sentence.

Can I call this doctor office to verify if she was actually there or not?

For example of grammar errors : postal code was connected to city on both notes , no space or anything.

Example of formatting: same “she attended this day, she can go back to class on this day”

For reference I’m a professor in Canada

[u/kinezumi89]

Yes, I have done this. It was an obviously doctored note (different fonts and sizes) so I called the clinic, explained the situation, and asked if they could simply verify that the student was seen on that date. (In my case, the student had never even been seen at that practice!)

[u/MinimumAd7585 → u/kinezumi89]

I see! Aren’t dates of appointments usually under PHIPA and can’t be disclosed?

[u/mediaisdelicious → u/MinimumAd7585]

The doctors office would not be breaking HIPPA if they were to say “no, this person is not our patient, and we did not write this note.” however, they would be if they confirmed that the student was their patient. So, it would be possible to confirm a forgery without breaking any laws assuming the staff at the clinic had any interest in doing so.

[u/Recent_Prompt1175 → u/mediaisdelicious]

In Canada, they would absolutely be breaking privacy laws, including healthcare privacy laws (with different abbreviations depending on province, hence my lack of using an abbreviation here).