We have another guest post today, from Reed Smith‘s own Erica Yen. This one is about a recent, interesting decision concerning the interaction between the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and the common law – with a good result this time. As always, our guest bloggers are 100% responsible for their posts,
We walked into the Drug and Device Law Rock Climber’s room last night to find her packing for her return to college while the ignored TV blared in the background. Onscreen was a popular cable reality franchise involving wealthy denizens of a gated community in Southern California. The heated argument du jour involved one resident’s decision to speak privately to another about a third, during which exchange B-to-C confidences may or may not have been disclosed to A. The original confider was adamant that the information was hers alone to control, insisting that the private conversation should not have occurred. Much perfectly-coiffed shrieking ensued.
We were reminded of this spectacle as we read the decision of the Kentucky Supreme Court in Caldwell v. Chauvin, — S.W. 3d. –, 2015 WL 3653447 (Ky. June 11, 2015). In Caldwell, the underlying medical malpractice action involved plaintiff’s claim that her spinal surgery was unnecessary and negligently performed and caused her permanent injuries. In the course of discovery, defendant moved for a qualified protective order permitting him to make ex parte contacts with plaintiff’s healthcare providers. The court entered an order permitting such contacts but expressly declining to authorize disclosure of plaintiff’s health information. The order “also explicitly stated it was [not] requiring any physician to speak with [defendant] . . . , noting [that] the treating physicians [were] free to accept of decline counsel’s request as they [saw] fit.” Id. at *2 (internal punctuation omitted). Plaintiff sought a writ of prohibition from the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals declined to issue the writ, holding: 1) no Kentucky law prohibits the trial court from authorizing ex parte communications with non-expert treating physicians; and 2) the order did not violate any privacy right plaintiff might have because it did not compel the disclosure of any information. Id.Continue Reading Ask But Don’t Tell: Kentucky Allows Defendant to Seek Ex Parte Interviews of Plaintiff’s Treating Physicians
For over seven years, we’ve been following the odd little romance that the other side of the “v.” has been having with purported federal preemption of state litigation practices that allow our side to conduct voluntary, informal interviews with treating physicians – since our “HIPAA Does Not Preempt State Litigation Practice” post back in DDLaw’s formative Beck/Herrmann days. To put our position in one sentence, since HIPAA has an explicit exception for litigation (45 C.F.R. §164.512(e)), HIPAA has no preemptive effect on state law that accords both sides the same right to talk to treating physicians informally.
We cheered when the New York Court of Appeals got it right and hissed when a Missouri intermediate appellate court got it wrong. Well, we’re cheering again, and we like that better.
Last Friday the Eleventh Circuit decided Murphy v. Dulay, ___ F.3d ___, 2014 WL 5072710 (11th Cir. Oct 10, 2014), and rejected a HIPAA challenge to a Florida statute allowing – indeed effectively routinizing (if the doctor is willing) – informal treater interviews. Murphy isn’t going to help our clients directly, since the statute in question applies only to medical malpractice cases, and general Florida law, according to our 50-state survey of informal interview law is adverse. Still, precedent is precedent, and a federal appellate court rejecting bogus HIPAA preemption arguments should be rather persuasive, as well as fun to blog about.Continue Reading No, HIPAA Does Not Preempt Informal Treater Interviews
We expanded our practice into data privacy and security out of practical necessity. Expectations surrounding privacy of personal information are evolving, and the laws that regulate data privacy change every day, generally to expand protection for private information. Another thing that has changed is that we used to say that drug companies and medical device
Data privacy is a hot topic. We regularly speak on data privacy at Reed Smith’s annual California continuing legal education day, and it takes hours to prepare because the landscape changes so rapidly. The law changes day-by-day, both legislatively and in our courts, and entire emerging industries (e.g., the “apps” industry) are organized around the collection and monetization of personal information disclosing what we do, when we do it, for how long, and where we are located. The very definition of “privacy” is now robustly debated, which is a significant change from the days when everyone knew that “private” information meant name, date of birth, social security number, account numbers, or some combination thereof. Today if you asked 25 privacy professionals to define “private” information, you might get 25 answers, and some would say “everything.”
When we expanded our drug and medical device practice into the data privacy realm a few years ago (along with the co-author of this post, Reed Smith’s Joshua Marker, an outstanding privacy lawyer and active blogger in his own right), we found that the healthcare industry was, for the most part, ahead of the game because the rules were relatively clear. Everyone agreed that personal health information was private, and there was HIPAA, the ubiquitous federal law that has regulated the security and privacy of personal health information since enacted in 1996. Drug and medical device companies typically are not HIPAA-covered entities, but they often have possession of personal health information in connection with patients who use their products, and our experience is that our clients and the lawyers who represent them take patient privacy very seriously.
One thing that has not changed is that there is no private right of action under HIPAA. That does not mean, of course, that plaintiffs have not tried to sue over breaches of security involving their private information. A handful of cases have permitted state law claims supported in part by alleged HIPAA violations, pleaded as claims like “negligence per se.” And there are numerous state laws regulating medical information that have garnered more attention as data privacy has become front-page news.Continue Reading Privacy of Medical Information: No Harm, No Foul, No Private Right of Action
Have you ever noticed how you notice the same thing everywhere when you’re thinking about it? If you’re contemplating purchase of a station wagon, you see station wagons all over the place (sort of like the parking lot of a 1970’s Bobby Sherman concert).
We’ve been thinking about ex parte interviews with treating doctors. We’re
Arthur Parker ingested Upsher-Smith Laboratories’ drug amiodarone, developed pulmonary difficulties, and died. His widow brought a product liability action against Upsher Smith.
Lawyers for Upsher-Smith wanted to interview some of Parker’s treating physicians. Plaintiff opposed those ex parte interviews, saying that Nevada law prohibits the interviews and that waivers granted under HIPAA do not preempt
Interesting new decision out of the Asbestos MDL the other day, In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation (No. VI), 2009 WL 466381 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 25, 2009). The asbestos defendants largely defeated a motion to quash their subpoenae (“ae” is Latin for “s”) for documents from doctors who had purported to diagnose asbestos-related conditions
We love it when courts agree with us. (And don’t say, “Because it happens so rarely.”)
We posted in February that HIPAA does not preempt state laws that allow defense counsel to speak informally (and without plaintiff’s counsel present) with treating physicians.
In August, we praised a Kentucky federal trial court for holding that defense
Prescribing doctors – in our business you have to love them. Almost all of the cases we handle are governed by the learned intermediary rule, meaning that there’s no duty to warn a patient directly, and all warnings about prescription medical products are directed to the prescribers. When the prescribing doctor says “I knew all