New York court clarifies patient confidentiality protections

Seeking information about patients treated in emergency departments violates the physician-patient relationship, the ruling says.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Nov. 18, 2002. Additional information

Patients and physicians in New York last month won a round in keeping medical records private when the state's highest court ruled that hospitals can invoke the physician-patient privilege when law enforcement agencies go after medical records in an attempt to identify criminals.

The case, New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. v. Morgenthau, doesn't establish any new protection, per se. The ruling applied existing thresholds for when a physician must turn over information.

But the decision is a victory because the New York Court of Appeals recognized the importance of the privilege, said Donald Moy, general counsel for the Medical Society of the State of New York.

"I would have been concerned if the court took a narrow view of the law," he said. "It would have chipped away at the privilege."

The case originated after a 1998 incident in which an assailant -- identified only as a Caucasian man in his 30s or early 40s who may have been bleeding -- stabbed a man to death in Manhattan. The suspect was still at-large more than two years later, according to court records. The district attorney believed the man may have gone to a local hospital for treatment and subpoenaed 23 hospitals, including four owned by the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.

The subpoenas asked for "any and all records" of people who fit the man's description, including name, date of birth, address, telephone number, Social Security number, but not "information acquired by a physician, registered nurse or licensed practical nurse in attending said patient in a professional capacity and which was necessary to enable said doctor or nurse to act in that capacity," according to court records.

NYCHHC refused to turn over emergency department triage logs, saying it would breach patient confidentiality. The district attorney claimed the subpoenas didn't hurt privileges because they didn't ask for information acquired by medical diagnosis, medical treatment or medical expertise, which the law protects.

The court agreed with the hospital: "The challenged subpoenas define the class of records sought by the 'cause or potential cause' of injury. Thus, the subpoenas inevitably call for a medical determination as to the causation 'through the application of professional skill or knowledge.' It is precisely this intrusion into the physician-patient relationship that [the law] seeks to prevent."

PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

New York court clarifies patient confidentiality protections

Seeking information about patients treated in emergency departments violates the physician-patient relationship, the ruling says.

Additional information