Will involuntary hospitalization show up on a background check ?

Can't seem to get a straightforward answer from Google.

Aren't medically related things private and protected by laws?

That's what I thought, but involuntary commitals go through the court system so not really sure.

Excellent question. I've never been involuntarily committed but am really interested in the answer. Hope someone here knows. If you can't get an answer here someone on the Bipolar forum may know.

I don't believe so. I have been hospitalised yet still passed a background check. I suppose if you were criminally incarcerated in a mental ward that it would show up.

As far as I know, all psychiatric medical information is completely confidential. Supposedly.

No it won't show up because of HIPPA. I know this as a fact. I have had quite a few background checks and my mental health has never come into play. Not even for a concealed weapons permit.

What kind of background check are you expecting? For work?

In uk it musnt because i got an enhanced disclosure so i could work with vulnerable people including kids, disabled and elderly. I had been detained. Then i got it renewed even after a compulsary treatment order.
However i cannot adopt children in the future. The armed forces and police force would be out of the question.
All my employers found out about my history and one referred me to occupational health and told everyone i had been in rehab.
I wish i could have a respectable job or career, i may aswell have been to prison

it depends on the type of background check that is being done...

a general criminal history background check... no not unless you were arrested or transported to the hospital by the police, sheriff department for involuntary assessment and commitment. it will only list transport to hospitals name for the hospitals side of the record. it will not contain direct info about what happened at the hospital.

a general credit history background check.... yes if you, (not your insurance ) paid or didnt pay your hospital bill, not paying hospital bills results in the bill entering collections and placed on your credit report as an unpaid bill which decreases a persons credit rating.

medical background check.... yes it will show up that you were hospitalized in what ever hospitals name is (thats not protected by privacy laws, what is protected by privacy laws is why you were there. background checks can not get into your hospital records to find out why you were there)

mental background check... yes it will show up that you were hospitalized in what ever hospitals name is. it will not show what went on at the hospital.

some locations just do the general criminal background check (for apartment applications some job careers...) and others do the full background check.. (applications to a city or government job, adult/ child protective services on abuse cases, ....and others)

my suggestion is find out which type of background check someone is doing for you.. they will tell you whether they will be contacting area hospitals for verification of whether you were admitted (which is part of public records ) and why they need that info.

I believe HIPPA trumps all of that. I have had a medical, criminal, financial, and general and nothing showed up except past bills. Maybe it varies from state to state but I know it does not show up in Florida or North Carolina. just my past experiences.

I cant go into major details because of job rules here but what I can say is through situations like domestic violence court cases, child abuse cases, adult abuse cases I have had to contact other states for background checks of various kinds. the ones I stated that they do show up on in my previous post is what I have experienced personally on having to perform and it does show up regardless of which state I contacted.

in my personal life to apply for one of the jobs I have now a full background check (credit, criminal, medical / mental) it did show up even when I was police transported while on vacation in another state to the hospital, that transport was medical not mental but it still showed up on my report when the job sent a background check form to them for a "complete history" of any events where the police were involved....

my point a "full background check" is different than just a criminal background check.. a criminal background check only asks the police departments nationwide whether you have been.......convicted..... of a crime.

a full background check wants to know any and all situations in regards to anything that the person doing the background check is looking for. its more specific and outlining on the form exactly what the person doing the background check is looking for...

example someone who is applying to be a teacher better not have a history of any encounters with the police in regards to sexual abuse, so a criminal background check asks if the person has been......convicted..... of a sexual crime.. where as a full background check (meaning full disclosure) the form asks if the person in question has had any encounters with the police in regards to sexual activity with children or adults.

see what I mean... background checks are no longer the simple has this person committed a crime or not and so on. thanks to the new president we have new standards for background checks. that are more detailed\ specific.

NY is a sanctuary state so on .....some..... things NY can get away with not disclosing but many other states have to at least disclose whether someone was police transported to a hospital and what hospital if the form asks that question.

HIPPAA covers protections for health insurance, meaning health insurance cant drop someone off their plans for losing their jobs or having a pre existing condition. makes the USA health department have uniform standards for processing online payments that are secure, and a database where patients can look up their own records with a password, Tax related provisions, ...

where actual medical/ mental health records are concerned it......limits the use and disclosure. it does not ....hide.... the records. it basically says treatment providers can not use whats inside of a patients file for disclosing to their family and friends and the general public that patents health problems but "still allows relevant health information to flow through proper channels."

what is protected in the files is patients name, address, social security number, their health conditions, information of payment plans that identifies the patient (credit card numbers, bank numbers....)

whether a person went to a hospital is just one of those things under public records, anyone can call a hospital with their friend or family member and say I am looking for so and so have they been admitted and when and the hospital will look up on their computer and say yes they are in room what ever or no they have not been admitted since such and such a date.

many newspapers have a section in their newpaper called "for the record" "lifestyles" or divided by town names which lists names of people who have been arrested or hospitalized, graduated, got married, gave birth, died.... all these things are called public records. open to anyone.

another thing to think about... many employers use things like twitter and facebook now to do part of their background checks... someone posts on their facebook page they were hospitalized and why its considered open to the public. all an employer (or anyone else) needs to do is go on social media sites and type in the search bar the persons name, and what ever they are looking for like the word hospital and all the posts regarding that person and hospitals that the person posted since joining that social media site comes up.

my point if someones background check includes looking for whether a person was hospitalized it will show up in one form or another.

I've been committed to state hospitals twice in different states and it's never come up on criminal background checks for work.

You know this is a very good question. I know of an individual who just had their clearance pulled after an annual review. They still have a job but they had to be moved to an alternate location that has no security risk. I only just connected this.

Yep...this is what happened. I was transported from the ER to the psych hospital, by the police. Not because I broke the law though. I'm going to run a background check on myself (it's expensive) and see what I find. There has to be a way to get this removed if it's there. It can't be right.

I mean in general, maybe this is why I never get hired anywhere. I was thinking about my future career options and wondering in what ways it would hold me back if I had this on my record.

Okay just signed up for a free trial on SearchQuarry and this came up: All of our available online sources in Tennessee are reporting that_______ has no record as of 07/20/2017. Our databases are updated every 24 hours so please check back tomorrow as there might be more information available on _______.

I hope this is accurate.

It is accurate. I have a FFL license the toughest fire arm license to get. I get inspected by the ATF once a year. Nothing in my records for hospitilzation so if I am good so are you.

Every time I've been in the hospital I've had to sign a release for them to notify any callers that I was there. Otherwise they just say "we cannot confirm or deny".

I don't know about HIPPA, but in NJ, if you register to try to get a gun, they won't give you one if you've been in a mental hospital.

But how do they find out? As far as I know there isn't a universal healthcare database. If there was I wouldn't have to fill out a new form every time I saw a new doctor. Do you just sign a release for every mental hospital in the US?

I'm not trying to get a gun, in case anyone was wondering.

I think I remember actually asks you on the gun application. I'm not trying to get a gun, either, but I believe I have the right to get one as long as I'm not violent. I might want one for self-defense one day (and that means getting trained to use it, too... Getting one and not being trained ups your chances of yourself ending up hurt). The point is, it's my American right, and people's rights shouldn't be taken away without solid reason.

But as for how they'd find out, I just assumed it would show up in a background check. But I've never done one, so I don't know.

there is a reporting system for treatment providers similar to how a treatment provider notifies the DMV that their patient is not safe driving a vehicle...

if a treatment provider suspects their client should not have a gun they must report it to the federal firearms database that all licensed firearms dealers must verify the applications through.

if a mentally ill person has a gun that means their treatment provider either didnt do their reporting process or they felt the person was not a danger if they possessed a firearm.

I have to say that although I personally don't like guns, I'm 100% against blanket restrictions being placed on the mentally ill. For one thing, if someone wants to use a gun to commit a crime they are going to find a way to get one, no matter what. As a matter of fact most do not own the firearms legally. So this doesn't prevent any crime.

For another, everyone should be assessed on a case by case basis. Mental illness isn't this general thing that affects every person in the same way. For example, addiction often co occurs with MI. I, however have never struggled with that. Is it fair to assume that I'm going to become an addict, just because so many others have? I find it funny that although mental illness seems a lot more complex and case based than physical illness, we are generalized way more than they are.

In short, I think a provider being able to contact a third party without your permission is absurd.

It doesn't show up in my country. I've been arrested once during a suicide attempt and I've been sectioned/involuntarily commited once. In my country jobs don't really do background checks - most jobs require you to request a statement from the government that says you've never done anything that, if repeated, will pose a danger to other people during your new job. However the "anything" basically only means conviction of a crime.