Can a pharmacy give out info on you to law inforcement without you being notified?

It depends on the laws of the state in which you live. Depending on the circumstances, they may be able to do that.

Hello very:

Sure. In a doctor/patient relationship, a doctor is prevented by law from disclosing information on you. Your pharmacist is not. What makes you think those records are private? No, of course, they don't have to contact you. Again, what would make you think they do?

excon

Office for Civil Rights/HIPAA
1-800-368-1019 - Civil Rights
1-866-627-7748 – HIPAA
TTY: 1-800-537-7697
Email: [email protected]

Why not get the answer straight from the horse's mouth. LOL

The law enforcement agency may have to obtain a valid warrant to get the info. But they are under no obligation to report to you that they gave out the info.

Yes, under HIPPA law enforcement, the courts, national security interest, issues with protection of the president and issues if you were to go to prison, they can all give your info. The police will need a warrant. You will not be notified if they do, there is no provission for you to be notified.

I have to laught at the 100's of people that can look at your medical records, there is not even a need of consent if the information is being shared between medical professionals. Most people have a misguided belief that their records can not be viewed at all, but this is not nearly the case

Many people can look at your records without your consent. Essentially, the regulation carved out a safe harbor for people required by law to have knowledge of medical events. This includes public health authorities (for preventing/controlling disease, etc. child abuse reports), people who need to meet FDA requirements (adverse event reporting, medical device tracking, etc.), people who may have been exposed to certain diseases under certain conditions, employers under certain circumstances, etc. Generally all this is described rather broadly in whatever document about HIPAA your healthcare provider makes you read. If you want to wade through all the legalese, HIPAA is a public regulation, available on-line. You want to look up 45 CFR 164.512 for the particulars about who can look.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Matt3046

Under the Hippa laws you must give consent. What the frog said.

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Actually, I said the opposite. Here's the most glaringly obvious example. A child is brought into the emergency room with shaken baby syndrome. The hospital has a legal duty to report cases of suspected child abuse to the police. HIPAA specifically says that they do not have to get the child or their parent's consent to send that information to the police. In this case, it's felt that the state's duty to protect children outweighs a patient's expectation of privacy.

To relate back to the original question, if the police ask a pharmacist for patient information that the pharmacist is required by law or regulation to give, I'd be willing to bet that HIPAA says that they can do that without asking the patient. The intent of the safe-harbor provision in HIPAA is to cover those situations in which people would be violating another law if the patient refused consent to distribute the information.

To further muddy the waters, many healthcare facilities make people sign statements that they have been informed of the HIPAA policies, etc. and understand how their medical information is going to be handled. If, in that statement, it says something like "will be held confidential except as required to comply with valid legal requests", you may have just given them a blanket authorization to allow them to disclose that without asking you, even if HIPAA wouldn't let them. So it's not a cut-and-dried situation.

No no the pharmacist will not even tell them if you are a customer. If they are going by the law. Well at least that's what I was told when I worked at CVS.



http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf

Judicial and Administrative Proceedings.

Covered entities may disclose
protected health information in a judicial or administrative proceeding if the
request for the information is through an order from a court or administrative
tribunal. Such information may also be disclosed in response to a subpoena
or other lawful process if certain assurances regarding notice to the individual
or a protective order are provided.33

Law Enforcement Purposes.

Covered entities may disclose protected health
information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under
the following six circumstances, and subject to specified conditions: (1) as
required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas)
and administrative requests; (2) to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive,
material witness, or missing person; (3) in response to a law enforcement
official's request for information about a victim or suspected victim of a
crime; (4) to alert law enforcement of a person's death, if the covered entity
suspects that criminal activity caused the death; (5) when a covered entity
believes that protected health information is evidence of a crime that
occurred on its premises; and (6) by a covered health care provider in a
medical emergency not occurring on its premises, when necessary to inform
law enforcement about the commission and nature of a crime, the location of

the crime or crime victims, and the perpetrator of the crime.

It's interesting that you cite that part, and use it to claim that the pharmacy can't tell without the patient's permission, when it's given as part of the "Public Interest and Benefit Activities", starting on page 6, and clearly states that the covered entity can disclose information without authorization or permission from the patient in those situations. Plus, you left out the much shorter one that tops the list: As required by law.

So, once again, it gets down to what information the police are asking the pharmacist about. And why. And does it fall into the Public Interest and Benefit Activities exclusions. (Of which there are 12, by the way, some of which police might be asking about outside of the "Law Enforcement" exclusion. Like Abuse.)

Ok well I certainly did not leave anything out to deceive you. I couldn't post the whole thing it was like 20 pages. I started to use the as required by law but I thought this part was more relevant. But anyway it seems to be very confusing with the ultimate decision left to the professional and ethical opinions of the Dr. or pharmacist. Now I can tell you for a fact that chain stores have their own co policies regarding these things. Which really isn't the question, but most of the big guys would not allow this and would threaten the pharmacist jobs (and salary). So can they it seems to be dependent on what they were requesting them for. Can it be used in court?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Matt3046

Ok well I certainly did not leave anything out to deceive you. I couldn't post the whole thing it was like 20 pages. I started to use the as required by law but I thought this part was more relevant. But anyway it seems to be very confusing with the ultimate decision left to the professional and ethical opinions of the Dr. or pharmacist.

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I think that we are in violent agreement. :)

And, as is often the case in situations like this, the answer seems to be "it depends". No, a cop can't just wander into a pharmacy and pull a random file and read it. Yes, they can get some information without your consent in certain situations. So, without knowing what information the police were requesting in the original post, it's hard to say whether the patient would have to give consent or not.