Medical Records Consent Not Required

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Health - AP

Medical Records Consent Not Required

Fri Aug 9, 6:57 PM ET

By JANELLE CARTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hospitals and doctors can share private information about

a patient's health with HMOs and insurance companies without the patient's

permission, the Bush administration said Friday in a decision denounced by

privacy advocates.

Finalizing rules on the handling of medical records, the Department of

Health and Human Services ( news - web sites) set aside a Clinton

administration proposal that would have required a patient's written consent

before that information could be released.

However, doctors and other health care providers will have to notify

patients of privacy policies and make a " good faith effort " to get written

acknowledgment under the new policy. Health care providers had complained

that requiring written permission could stall needed treatments.

The Clinton version " would have forced sick or injured patients to run all

around town getting signatures before they could get care or medicine, " said

Health and Human Services ( news - web sites) Secretary Tommy .

He said the Bush administration's approach " strikes a common-sense balance

by providing consumers with personal privacy protections and access to high

quality care. "

" Patients now will have a strong foundation of federal protections for the

personal medical information that they share with their doctors, hospitals

and others who provide their care and help pay for it, " said.

The regulations, which take effect April 14, 2003, offer the first

comprehensive federal protections for patient privacy.

Health care providers are prohibited from disclosing patient information for

reasons unrelated to health services under the final rules. Civil and

criminal penalties are established for violators. The rules also give

patients the right to inspect and copy their records and ask for

corrections.

The Clinton version of the proposal, which was never put into effect, would

have required signed consent forms from patients even for routine matters

such as billing statements to insurance providers. The Bush administration

announced in March that it planned to strip the written consent requirement

from the medical privacy regulations.

Sen. Kennedy ( news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., chairman of the

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, promised to

introduce legislation to reinstate the mandatory consent forms.

" These regulations are a serious setback for medical privacy, " Kennedy said

Friday. " Insurance companies and HMOs are given broad access to highly

sensitive personal medical information. Action by Congress is clearly needed

to guarantee all Americans that the privacy of their medical records will

not be abused. "

Health care providers celebrated the changes.

" The rule helps put the patient in the driver's seat when it comes to their

own medical information, " said Dick son, president of the American

Hospital Association. " Unfortunately, earlier proposals could have created

logjams in providing patients with timely care and more paperwork in a

system already choked with paper. "

Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, said the rule

" is in the best interests of patients, and strikes a proper balance between

the need to protect personally identifiable medical information with the

need for health care providers to deliver timely, high-quality care. "

Privacy advocates maintained the consent forms were needed.

" Having somebody sign a form makes it more likely they are going to read it

and more likely that they're going to understand how their information is

going to be used, " said Janlori Goldman, who directs the Health Privacy

Project at town University.

The regulations clarify that personal information cannot be sold or given to

drug companies or others that want to market a product or service without

patient permission. But pharmacies could still, for instance, send the

information to patients directly at the behest of a drug company.

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