I wonder what they saw on their screen. Maybe it was nothing and the tech just enjoyed being unhelpful and was maybe rewarded for it. Maybe it was flagged by NSA heuristics and there was an "untrustworthy" message.
I've heard plenty about how HIPAA gets in the way of legitimate sharing with outsiders (e.g. making a common format for medical profile transfer impractical), but I don't recall having heard about it preventing the principal individual from getting answers from their own provider.
Edit: Why in the hell is my iPhone erroneously autocorrecting HIPAA to HIPPA?
Crowd-sourced autocorrect dictionary on display. :\
Realistically corporations are more likely to use less blatantly stupid excuses ("our insurance policy forbids...").
And macOS 13 Guantanamo :)