Posted on 04/28/2005 8:01:01 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Unnecessarily rude...
I have visited Florida and found it to be quite lovely, and the inhabitants friendly and warm (excluding yourself). My comment refects my opinion that the Florida legislature, judicial and executive branches need considerable help...considering Terri Schiavo and the sexual predators that have recently slipped through cracks in the system. I am therefore quite comfortable living in my state, which does not seem to have the problems Florida currently wrestles with.
I don't think that you feel what I said is Unnecessarily rude any more than I feel you comment about Florida was rude. And I am very glad that you are quite content living where you do as we have enough people moving here to Florida already.
Don't you see how contorted you have to make the statute in order to create something that could wrongly be interpreted to your desired result ?
How much simpler it would have been to add "Medical records shall NOT be obtainable by search warrant" to the search warrant statute itself (933) if that was truely what they intended to do ?
Even if you were correct, since 395 applies to licensed medical facilities, if someone obtains a copy of their own medical records, it follows that THAT copy could be obtained via search warrant.
CHAPTER 395
HOSPITAL LICENSING AND REGULATION
395.001 Legislative intent.--It is the intent of the Legislature to provide for the protection of public health and safety in the establishment, construction, maintenance, and operation of hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and mobile surgical facilities by providing for licensure of same and for the development, establishment, and enforcement of minimum standards with respect thereto.
(4) Patient records are confidential and must not be disclosed without the consent of the person to whom they pertain, but appropriate disclosure may be made [by health care facilities] without such consent to:
(d) In any civil or criminal action, unless otherwise prohibited by law, upon the issuance of a subpoena from a court of competent jurisdiction and proper notice by the party seeking such records to the patient or his or her legal representative.
__________________________________
Given the title and intent of Chapter 395, I have to say it looks like the correct way to read the text is as a directive governing HC facilities, rather than a regulation of the Executive.
I've eaten crow before, and it's not bad with proper seasoning. Pass me the salt, please.
More salt, please.
It should be a federal appeal. This is a species of search, and thus there are federal constitutional issues involved. There are also very tightly drawn federal statutes governing the confidentiality of medical records.
"There are also very tightly drawn federal statutes governing the confidentiality of medical records."
Yep, and the Federal HIPAA regulations allow the use of search warrants.
Black would get to file yet another highly-paid yet sure losing appeal.
Hey I think that all the judges in the Florida Supreme Court has done something illegal as far as medication. Does this mean that THEIR medical records have to be released.
The difference between a warrant and a subpoena in this context has to do with whose privacy is being violated. Suppose the government has reason to suspect that a doctor is unlawfully hiding child pornography in the cabinet with his patients' files. It would be proper for law enforcement to get a warrant to search those files for child pornography. Such a warrant, however, should not justify the examination of those files to determine if any patients had committed a crime.
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