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Medical Malpractice Law & StrategyLJN NewslettersNewsSections

Avoiding a Breach of Confidentiality

By Gary S. Sastow and Janice G. Inman
July 31, 2008

For the past several years, physicians and other health care providers have focused most, if not all, of their attention on the various patient health information confidentiality requirements imposed by the federal government's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA's enactment has ' or should have ' caused health care providers to become sensitized to the fact that patient confidentiality must be preserved, and compliance with the various rules and regulations contained in the legislation is required.

However, less attention has been accorded to individual state-statute based patient confidentiality requirements, many of which existed for a significant period of time before the enactment of HIPAA. Other privacy right claims can be made based on traditional tort concepts, such as breach of contract and negligence. Physicians and other health care providers should remember to spend some of their energies focusing on these issues and on state privacy laws that exist independently of HIPAA, since they can give rise to causes of actions by aggrieved patients.

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