The World Privacy Forum filed comments to the US Department of Education regarding its student health privacy guidance published August 18, 2015. The World Privacy Forum supports the DoE guidance, which clarifies how universities and colleges are to handle sensitive student medical records in cases of non-medical litigation. The guidance notes that educational institutions should
Schools increasingly provide students with more health services. Health clinics, counselors on site, administration of drugs, and vaccinations are among the types of healthcare offered on school campuses ranging from kindergarten through graduate school. Given that schools may have sensitive health information, what law covers health record privacy for school records? The answer is important. It is also messy, because two laws can apply to this information. In some cases, no privacy law applies to the health records.
The World Privacy Forum provided an intervention for the Civil Society Consultation on the Universal Periodic Review of the United States recommending that health information should only be disclosed for national security purposes pursuant to a judicial warrant, and that there must be procedures under which record keepers can challenge national security demands for health
HIE stands for “Health Information Exchange.” We encourage all patients to request a copy of their medical records and check for errors, whether on paper or digital. If you have received a copy of your medical record from your doctor and you find mistakes or errors, it is a good idea to correct those files as soon as possible with that health care provider. It’s also important to see if incorrect information has been circulated into a Health Information Exchange, and get it corrected there as well. See more ….
This Jan. 30, 2014 report discusses a new right to restrict disclosure of health information under the updated HIPAA health privacy rule. The new provision called “Pay Out of Pocket,” also called the “Right to Restrict Disclosure” gives patients the right to request that their health care provider not report or disclose their information to their health plans when they pay for medical services in full. Navigating the new right will take effort and planning for patients to utilize effectively. This substance of this report is about the new patient right to restrict disclosure, and how patients can use it to protect health privacy.