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Wednesday, February 11, 2004The medical examiner's office said this week that Dr Atkins's medical report was "sent in error" to Richard Fleming, a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which runs an anti-Atkins website. Dr Fleming last year released the diet book Stop Inflammation Now!, which promotes a diet that is all fruit, vegetables and whole grains. The Atkins company deplored the leaking of Dr Atkins's medical records to "a known group of vegan and animal rights extremists". Doesn't HIPAA apply to medical examiners? Especially when there's no crime involved? UPDATE: Mrs. Atkins is considering a lawsuit. UPDATE II: A reader has looked up the relevant New York law: Not being an attorney I did a bit of research (googling)--to summarize--legislation varies from State to State and considerable judicial and executive discretion exists as to what can be released to whom. In many cases summary data including such things as height, weight, cause of death, age, sex, etc. is considered part of the "public record" as are death certificates which might also include this information Note, a medical examiner's findings are usually not treated the same as physician or hospital record. As the executive of a behavioral healthcare organization I know we have had relatively easy access to autopsy reports of patients who had been receiving care (or recently received care) @ our agency even though the cause of death was unrelated to the treatment they were receiving. Below is a brief summary of NY's law--NY County Law ยง677: Autopsy reports available under following circumstances: 1) upon application of personal representative; 2) upon proper application of any person who is or may be affected in a civil or criminal action by the contents of the investigation; or 3) upon application of any person having a substantial interest. A court will find substantial interest where there is adequate reason to obtain the report. The court will balance privacy concerns and other factors. The Court has held there is a substantial interest where doctors and medical personnel use records for educational tool and/or in cases to prove one did not commit a crime. Sounds like she may have a case. The medical examiner's report isn't being put to any of those uses. Although death certificates are a matter of public record, they generally don't include height and weight. At least not in the two states in which I've signed them - one of which is New York. They just have date of birth, date and time of death, place of death (sometimes), and cause of death. UPDATE III: Another reader says there's plenty of culpability to go around here: Considering all the stupid little diddly things we now do to protect patient's information from essentially non existent threats, this bit of news sounds like exactly what this law was created to prevent. In fact, yesterday I sent an email to the Atkins site, expressing my dismay and stating that I thought the Atkins family had a real breach of rights on this one. (I have too much free time on my hands on days off.) While I absolutely hold the medical examiner culpable, it is highly likely that they were tricked into providing this information, and perhaps some responsible minimal investigation on their part might have prevented this whole debacle. They were negligent, but most likely not malicious. However, I believe there is even more responsibility on the part of the requesting physician who should have clearly known he was breaking federal law in requesting this information dishonestly and clearly his motives in what he wanted to do with this information were malicious. Secondly, I hold our news agencies, including the newspapers and television news shows responsible for broadcasting what turned out to be very incomplete and private information, without family permission. Isn't this a breach of privacy without signed permission from the family or estate? Shouldn't they be held responsible too for perpetuating this in violation of federal law? posted by Sydney on 2/11/2004 08:31:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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