HIPAA Medical Privacy Rule Might Limit Epidemiology Studies, Survey Finds

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 15 Nov 2007 - 7:00 PDT

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The medical privacy rule issued following passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act might limit the ability of epidemiologists to conduct studies in the U.S., according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (Fahy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/13).

The HIPAA Federal Privacy Rule, implemented in 2003, allows health care providers to share patient medical records for the purposes of treatment and other "health care operations." Providers do not have to obtain written consent before they disclose medical records but are required to inform patients of their rights and make a "good-faith effort" to obtain written acknowledgment from patients that they have received the information. Providers must obtain consent from patients before they can disclose medical records in "nonroutine" cases (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 7/3).

For the study, researchers led by Roberta Ness, chair of the epidemiology department at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, e-mailed surveys to more than 10,000 members of 13 epidemiology societies. Among the more than 1,500 respondents, two-thirds said that the medical privacy rule has limited their ability to conduct studies, and one in nine said that the rule prompted them to abandon a potential study, the study found (Johnson, AP/Chicago Tribune, 11/13). Only one-fourth of respondents said that the rule improved medical privacy for study participants, according to the study.

Ness said, "The privacy rule has made research more costly and time consuming" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/13). According to the AP/Tribune, participants in the study, commissioned by the Institute of Medicine, "could have answered the survey more than once," and those "with strong feelings may have been more likely to participate, which would have skewed the results" (AP/Chicago Tribune, 11/13).

An abstract of the study is available online.

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