Do local police have the right to divulge medical history to a third-party civilian?
Long story short, a third-party was given copies of all medical calls made to my former residence. These reports contained confidential and personal medical and mental health information about me. The information included my mental health diagnosis, medication and where I was transported to. They were medical calls where I was transported by ambulance to the nearest hospital.
Is this allowed by law?
I feel it is a HIPAA Privacy Violation for them to release medical and mental health information to a third-party with out my authorization or knowledge. This person did not have a “need-to-know”.
Are you sure the information came from the police and not fire/EMS?
Anyway, was there a request as part of a legal proceeding? Like, are you going through a divorce or something and your spouse requested this information as part of the divorce case? Or your landlord requested it as part of an eviction proceeding? Anything like that?
The person went to the Records Division of the local Police and requested copies of all times that police were present at my residence. The Records Division gave them all to that person with no questions asked.
I still can’t believe it happened.
And if law enforcement doesn’t have to abide by HIPAA I think that it’s unjust. That means any civilian can get another person’s medical information anytime they want to? Just because they saw an ambulance and police car parked at someone’s house?
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
Please note that as the forum name implies, any responses you get there are just the opinions of some online folks and should not be considered the equivalent of professional legal advice.
Unless you were involuntarily committed, none of that information should be present in a police report except for the bare details of the medical calls. In my state, at least, it would require a court order to obtain mental health information.
Police reports are open records just about everywhere in the U.S.
You should be asking questions of whoever runs the local police (city council, county commission, etc.). The law in your jurisdiction should cover what is and is not a government open record subject to public disclosure. For example, here in Kansas the state Open Records Act specifically declares that medical and psychiatric records of identifiable patients that are held by state and local government are not considered open records and are not required to be released. Therefore, the police dept (in conjunction with the city attorney’s office) gets to decide whether or not to release them, and here they don’t.
Your local department may not have a formal policy (if not, they should), or that policy may need to be revised (or the records dept might not have followed existing policy).
That is exactly right. Each state has different open records legislation. For the most part police records are pretty open. Each state will handle what information is exempt differently. First the OP needs to look up his state’s open records law. Then he can see if the local department failed to follow the law with regard to giving out confidential information. As far as I can tell the information given out in the OP would be perfectly legal to give out in my state. In fact the department can get into big trouble for not granting an open records request.
Edited to add: as was posted in post #3 your local police department is not subject to HIPAA. It may or may not be a violation of local law.
In all fairness, we need to know who the mysterious “third party” is and why they wanted this information, as well as if they were authorized to use it. Was this a relative or guardian who has a power of attorney for you that would allow it? Or did you previously forfeit a right to privacy to this third party that might have set a precedent for them to obtain this information in the future (e.g. are you in the military and did your superior officer request the information?) There are numerous circumstances that are otherwise legal where confidential health information might become part of a police report that could then be accessed by someone asking for it simply because it found its way into the report, which is otherwise part of the public record. Likewise, even in the best of circumstances, I doubt the average police officer is very aware of HIPAA privacy laws (and the added protections that are supposed to be given for mental health records), so even if that information should have been protected, I suspect a little social engineering would be enough to get them to release it.
Personally identifiable is a standard that leaves a wide open loophole.
I’m not in the US, but we have similar patient privacy legislation. Our records release generally only prohibits the release of the individual’s name. Other details might make the information identifiable to people who piece together available information.
We would not release info that police responded to a report of Joe Smith, who has a history of bipolar disorder, creating a disturbance at 123 Oak St.
We would release info that police responded to a report of a 46 year old male, who has a history of bipolar disorder, creating a disturbance at 123 Oak St.
Of course neighbors would likely understand that Joe Smith is the only male of about that age who resides at that address and make the assumption that this is who the report refers to.
If you tried to commit suicide, or self harmed, or behaved in an erratic or dangerous fashion the record of the police or EMT response to that emergency is going to be publically accessible. HIPAA privacy regs are more narrow than you might think and many entities are not bound by them.
I have to agree with Really Not All That Bright’s note that the laundry list of intimate personal info you mentioned was divulged would not normally be in any police report. How in the world would the Police even have this information you allege they released?
It’s reasonably common for EMS services to be dispatched by the local police, and for the police to be sent on all calls involving a mental health emergency.
Hipaa does not apply to law enforcement. They are not medical providers. Many things can be disclosed to law enforcement from a medical provider without your consent, including any information they feel is needed to lessen the threat of danger to self/others. This can include behaviors, diagnosis, possible weapons in the home, and medications that should be in the home, because they were prescribed (it can be helpful to know if a person has been taking their prescribed medication, and they aren’t always truthful to doctors if they are)
It is not required for your consent to release this info to the police, and the police are not required to follow hipaa, but may have internal policies on disclosure.
In my state, “46 year old male at 123 Oak St” (assuming that 123 Oak St is a residence) is enough to make the record identifiable; it doesn’t have to name names (the standard is “identifiable” rather than “identified”). Different states likely have different rules.
I know one thing though. Cops are not really well educated in the laws; they just pretend as if they are law experts. However, they are no Ph.d no lawyer. When asking to the actual lawyers, the cops are often either wrong about what they say about the laws or they are plain illegal. Just because cops do something doesn’t mean that’s legal. Cops often do illegal things. Cops often say wrong things about the laws. Consult with the lawyers because cops are not really law experts while they tend to pose themselves to be equivalent of lawyers.