180.997 Privacy of Medical Records:
MSSNY supports the enactment of legislation to preserve patient privacy that includes the following:
(1) that HMOs as well as other financial or insurance organizations obtaining medical information preserve this information in such a manner that only personnel under the authority of a physician (MD or DO) have the right to peruse the medical information and that records be kept of those who do access any medical records indicating the purpose for which it was accessed and the person, time and date when it was accessed.
(2) that consent for release of information be limited to particular purposes.
(3) that information used to determine medical necessity for payment be covered by the rules established above. This would ensure that decisions regarding such necessity for payment would be subject only to medical rather than lay review.
(4) that penalties established as a result of these evaluations be assessed in terms of gross revenues to prevent the larger entities from being able to violate the rules since the penalties might not affect them in any significant degree.
(5) that repeated violations could result in loss of ability to conduct business in the health care field.
(6) that violations by the supervising medical personnel be subject to professional sanctions and that repeated violations by personnel being supervised who disregard their organization’s and supervisor’s rules regarding confidentiality be subject to criminal as well as civil penalties. (Council 10/24/96; Reaffirmed HOD 2015; Reaffirmed HOD in lieu of 2017-102)
