[antiRepublicrat]

The facility is prevented by HIPPA restrictions from releasing any information about her without her permission.

IIRC, hospitals will say whether someone has been admitted, but can give no specific information.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Not lately. As a lawyer, with clients who are sometimes hospitalized, I have run into the situation where a patient I had visited one day is moved to a different room in the same hospital the next, and the hospital will not acknowledge that the patient is/is not in the facility. Fortunately there is usually a family member who knows and can advise me - but in the recent case of a childless, estranged individual who was in his final days - the hospital wouldn't admit that he was in the building. It certainly has substantial privacy benefits, and I'm not criticizing that - it's just that it has become the refuge of choice for those in Foley/Kennedy's shoes or for scam artists (pleading for contributions for the sick child, etc.) There is no way for the press or anyone to establish, objectively what is true regarding these claims (i.e., did Patrick Kennedy really go to the Mayo Clinic, or did he just lay low in Florida?)