Transcript Ch. 5 Law - PhilosophicalAdvisor.com

Truthfulness and Confidentiality, Ch. 5
HIPAA (1996)
 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
 Effort to codify and give national conformity to the use
of confidential patient information
Statutory Disclosure:
HIPAA reinforces legal requirements to release
information regarding:
 Venereal disease
 Poisonings
 Industrial accidents
Statutory Disclosure (cont.):
 Abortions
 Drug abuse
 Abuse of
 Children
 the Elderly
 the Disabled
These legal duties to disclose may extend to
imagining professionals, state to state. Check with
your employer’s risk manager
Tatiana
Tarasoff
Prosenjit
Poddar
Duty to Warn Third Parties:
Read both scenarios on p105
Regarding Tarasoff case:
 The duty to warn an endangered third party requires that
the party is specifically identified (no duty to warn
everyone someone knows who sounds violent)
 The duty to warn an endangered third party is called a
Tarasoff duty
 Only Texas and Virginia have rejected the Tarasoff duty
 Some jurisdictions have expanded the duty to warn beyond
those specifically identified by the would-be assailant
Duty to Warn Third Parties (cont.):
Note the discussion, final paragraph, of the imagining
professional’s potential duties to warn third parties of
contagious disease threats of
 Family
 Neighbors
 Anyone physically intimate with patient
Again, imagining professionals have to check with
employer policies in place; note the AIDS discussion
on p107
Patient Access to Medical Records
 HIPAA has extended the rights of
patients to view what you write about
them
 Some exceptions to that right to their
own medical records exist, depending
on jurisdiction (some do not have the
right to notes taken in anticipation of a
lawsuit, for instance)
 Parents generally have the right to view
the medical records of their children
Breach of Confidentiality:
Simply note that courts do award cash to victims whose
medical secrets are exposed via
 Oral
 Written
 Computer communication
The legal basis can be
 Statutes defining expected conduct
 Ethical duties owed to patient
 Breach of fiduciary duties
 Breach of contract or implied contract between doctor and
patient
Defamation:
“A tort of defamation is based on the
right to maintain a good
reputation.” p109
 Defamation can only be claimed if




the statement that defames is false
Oral defamation is slander
Written defamation is libel
Standard of legal liability is
negligence
Harm must be demonstrated to
succeed in a claim of defamation
Defamation (cont.):
The requirement to demonstrate harm is satisfied without need
for additional information in these cases:
 Criminal activity
 AIDS
 Venereal disease
 Business, trade, or professional misdeed, or
 Unchastity
Such cases are called
 Slander per se
 Libel per se
(per se means by themselves)