CHICAGO -- It’s difficult enough to walk into an emergency room after a sexual assault, and it might not take much to make a survivor reconsider that decision.
For some, one fear might be that someone in their life will find out about the crime — by seeing paperwork from a hospital exam.
This could scare rape survivors for many reasons, from misplaced shame to fears the person who assaulted them could find out they sought help, potentially triggering a criminal investigation. Although survivors legally cannot be held financially responsible for rape exams, in Illinois, private insurance can be billed, which could mean an assault inadvertently disclosed to someone through, for example, insurance records.
