Are patient's just a number at the hospital?

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It's amazing that due to "hippa" the privacy act that was passed on, we now have all this privacy going on in the hospitals that our patients became "numbers". Working in the medical field sometimes I'm asked can you get this for patient number blah blah or can you take patient number blah blah here or there. It's so crazy I tell you, I feel as though this privacy thing is getting out of hand. What happend to Mrs. Blank, or Mr. Blank? No, it's patient number 850 44 321. I guess I'm just not used to big hospitals since for the last 11 years of my life before starting at the hospital I worked at a doctor's office and before that I worked at the animal hospital. At least at the animal hospital we referred to them as "short hair husky" or "the cute calico in room 5" at least we went by some type of name, but I guess they're only animals and there was no need for privacy? I'm so shocked though, I think our healthcare is somewhat forgetting of patient's names because one person ruined it for others. By one person complaining that their privacy was somewhat exposed by being called out in the waiting room by her last name, now everyone is referred to simply by a series of numbers. Tell me how inpersonal that is? As a patient, how do you feel?