Are there any exceptions to the Doctor-Patient Privacy Act?
I need to know if they have exclusionary rules like public safety, planned murder, are they are any rules where a doctor can break the privacy act?
Answers:
In a psychiatrist patient relationship, if a psychiatrist knows their patient is about to go out and kill someone (not themselves but someone else) and the patient has the apparent ability to do it and the threat is imminent (as in they are going to do it now!) they are supposed to alert either the police or the victim and say something like I am not allowed to tell you why but you are in danger and you need to leave where you are immediately and go to a safe location like a police station. Other than that, it is only the patient that can waive the privlidge by either suing the dr for malpractice or putting their medical condition at issue in a suit and signing authorizations to their drs. to release their meds. The other exception is where you sign docs to allow your dr. to bill your insurance company for your care and allow the dr. to submit your records if necc to the insurance company so they can get paid.
Yes.
If the patient dies.
If the person asserting the privilege puts their medical condition at issue. (Raises an insanity defense for instance.)
If compelled by Court order, the doc is off the hook for revealing the medical records.
The files any doctor has can be subpoenaed by the police department or district attorney or just about any government agency.
Yes there are exceptions.
But as is the case with about 85% of the questions in this section, the complete answer would vary based on what state you live in. You may get accurate answers for a particular state that is not yours
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