If 500K overdose fatalities wasn't enough, our HIPPA privacy policies are now on the chopping block! The incompetent and corrupt FDA had caused the greatest public health disaster in history
HIPPA Changes just Beginning
As needed to treat a patient, providers may disclose protected health information without the patient’s permission. In this context, “treatment” includes the management and coordination of healthcare between providers and the referral of patients for treatment. (45 CFR 164.502(a)(1)(ii), 164.506(c), 164.501). Providers are also already permitted to share protected health information with a patient’s relatives or friends if those people are involved in and necessary to the patient’s care, if the sharing is necessary to identify, locate, or notify family members. Before making these types of notifications, however, the providers should obtain the patient’s verbal permission or reasonably infer that the patient doesn’t object to the sharing. If the patient is unconscious, the provider can still share the protected health information if their professional judgment indicates that it is in the patient’s best interest. (45 CFR 164.510(b)).