HIPAA Compliance Strategies

Featured Health Business Daily Story October 13, 2008

HHS Releases Guidance on Sharing Patient Information With Family and Friends

Reprinted from REPORT ON MEDICARE COMPLIANCE, the nation's leading source of news and strategic information on false claims, overpayments, compliance programs, billing errors and other Medicare compliance issues.

By Eve Collins, Associate Editor, (ecollins@aispub.com)

The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Sept. 16 released new guidance on how to interact with a patient's family or friends without running afoul of the HIPAA privacy regulations. OCR released separate guides for both patients and providers on this issue.

The guides are in a question-and-answer format and address common and sometimes confusing situations about when a physician or other medical staff member can share information on a patient's condition with his/her family members.

For example, the provider's guide asks, "If the patient is present and has the capacity to make health care decisions, when does HIPAA allow a health care provider to discuss the patient's health information with the patient's family, friends, or others involved in the patient's care or payment for care?"

The provider may have these discussions if the patient agrees to this, the guide explains. "A health care provider also may share information with these persons if, using professional judgment, he or she decides that the patient does not object. In either case, the health care provider may share or discuss only the information that the person involved needs to know about the patient's care or payment for care," OCR says.

Another question asks about sharing information when the patient is not present or is incapacitated. "[A] health care provider may share the patient's information with family, friends, or others as long as the health care provider determines, based on professional judgment, that it is in the best interest of the patient. When someone other than a friend or family member is involved, the health care provider must be reasonably sure that the patient asked the person to be involved in his or her care or payment for care," it says. "The health care provider may discuss only the information that the person involved needs to know about the patient's care or payment."

However, providers should not reveal past medical problems that are unrelated to the patient's current condition. The provider also could wait until the patient is present or conscious to agree to the disclosure, OCR adds.

Read both guides at www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/privacy.html.

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