How Private is Your Health Information?

This will be an ongoing topic starting today. As a technology-obsessed attorney, our privacy as healthcare consumers interests (distresses) me.

A recent example: I had a small, simple auto accident case in which my client was the passenger in a vehcle that was hit. Clear liability any way you look at it. My client broke bones. Her only medical claim related to those broken bones.

Nevertheless, opposing counsel felt the need to make her entire medical history (my client was in her 40’s) part of an inquiry. That’s routine enough for defense counsel, but what wasn’t so routine was that opposing counsel obtained 10 years of my client’s medical records and then sent them to her client/insured.

Now why does her client, the defendant driver in an ordinary auto accident, need a stack of my client’s medical records?

More thoughts on this issue next blog.