A recent posting by our partner Christina Stoneburner, Esq., on the Fox Rothschild Employment Discrimination blog discussed the need by employers to limit protected health information (“PHI”) that they provide with respect to medical examinations of employees and job applicants to the least amount of medical information necessary for evaluation.  Interestingly, the focus of her posting was not disclosure under HIPAA/HITECH, or even state statutes regulating the use of PHI; it dealt with allegations that employees and job applicants had been sent for unnecessary medical examinations in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondisclosure Act. 

Christina summarizes her posting with the following:

 

In short, the least amount of medical information necessary to evaluate an employee is what should be provided to examiners.  For example, if you have an employee being evaluated to see if he can perform the essential functions of his job after a shoulder injury, the examining doctor should not be given the medical records relating to his planter’s wart being removed.

In her discussion, Christina noted our blog series respecting large breaches and a particular recent posting by Elizabeth Litten, Esq.  Christina also mentioned that the complaint on which her posting focused had alleged, "the employer often turned over Workers’ Compensation records . . . , even where those records were not relevant to the examination.”

 

Workers’ compensation is an area where Christina’s posting comes full circle to our blog’s focus on HIPAA;  as HIPAA directly confronts such area by making it clear that only the “minimum necessary” disclosure of PHI is permitted by covered entities without patient authorization pursuant to 45 CFR 164.512(l):

 

A covered entity may disclose protected health information as authorized by and to the extent necessary to comply with laws relating to workers’ compensation or other similar programs, established by law, that provide benefits for work-related injuries or illness without regard to fault.

 

The Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) has published further advice on how the workers’ compensation Regulation works:

 

Covered entities are required reasonably to limit the amount of protected health information disclosed . . . to the minimum necessary to accomplish the worker’s compensation purpose. Under this requirement, protected health information may be shared for such purposes to the full extent authorized by State or other law. 

 

In summary, to avoid needless and costly violations, employers and other covered entities must be constantly aware of the need to comply with multiple regulatory schemes that may govern PHI, beyond those of HIPAA and State laws governing PHI;  there is not unlimited flexibility to disclose PHI even within the context of State-governed workers’ compensation matters. When the long-anticipated “mega-regulation” regarding HIPAA/HITECH is finally published by HHS, special attention must be given to potential changes that may further tighten the “minimum necessary" standards.