The Appeal for Medical Privacy

Consumer coalition mobilizes appeal against HHS in two-year legal battle to restore protection of private health information

Philadelphia, PA-- In April 2003, every American lost a precious constitutional right—the fundamental right to determine who has access to their personal health information. On Wednesday, March 9, a coalition of consumer groups and healthcare practitioners will fight to restore this essential and long-standing freedom for all citizens. The appeal to a federal lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be heard at noon by the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The legal team of the medical privacy consumer and healthcare practitioner coalition will present oral arguments in an appeal to the April 2004 decision in Citizens for Health vs. HHS. The legal challenge is part of a wide-scale campaign by individuals and more than a dozen organizations to challenge the so-called Privacy Rule, a misnamed law that actually grants unprecedented, unconstitutional access to medical files without the consent of patients.

“This rule created by the Federal government violates the very essence of the American tradition of liberty,” says Michael Ostrolenk, Founder and National Coordinator of the Medical Privacy Coalition.

“It goes against over 200 years of American constitutional protections, the Hippocratic oath itself, and seriously jeopardizes the foundation of an open doctor-patient relationship.”

Sally Scofield, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, found out first hand how extensively the new medical privacy provisions actually violate individual patient’s privacy. In the spring of 2002, a marketing company contacted Scofield to inquire about her recent operation at a Chicago surgery center. Although the company was completely uninvolved in her medical care, they knew every detail about her surgery as well as all of her personal information. When Scofied contacted the state to complain about this obvious breech of personal privacy, she discovered that the activities of this marketing company were not only legal, but also a direct result of recent changes to the medical privacy rule.

Last April, however, U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin ruled that the medical privacy provision does not violate a patient’s constitutional right to privacy and that HHS has no legal responsibility to protect such rights. James Pyles, the Washington-based lawyer who filed the lawsuit and subsequent appeal, will argue on Wednesday to overturn that ruling.

“The real issue before the court is whether citizens still have a right to medical privacy in non-emergency situations,” Pyles says.

The Privacy Rule, which went into effect on April 14, 2003, is part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA. HIPAA mandates the way medical records are handled by doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and other healthcare providers. Under the new Privacy Rule, insurance companies, employers, law enforcement officers, and even bankers have the right to review a patient’s cradle-to-grave medical history. In effect, these 800,000 to 2.5 million “covered entities” can actually obtain and share a person’s health information without their knowledge or consent.

For more information about HIPAA and the medical privacy rule visit www.medicalprivacycoalition.org.

For more information about the lawsuit and appeal contact:

James Pyles: 202-466-6550
Richard Sobel: 617-497-1736