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What does that do for birth certificates? I would assume that they can disclose on a birth certificate that they were present at a birth... And I’ve never understood how news reports can say that a person is in critical condition or whatever. Isn’t that protected medical information? How could they even report rescue calls, or anything without signed consent from the person? Did they ever get consent to reveal that the underwear bomber or Nidal Hasan were being treated for injuries? HIPAA makes no sense to me. If a person’s physical condition is their own private business all the time, then nobody should be reporting on any of it without the express permission of the person - which they could never get for somebody unconscious, for example.

I agree that HIPAA doesn't always make sense - especially to those of us that deal with it all the time!

They can put the information on the birth certificate, because the certificate itself is protected health information. The idea behind HIPAA is that the patient "owns" the information, and the patient, rather than hospital or doctor, gets to decide how and when it is disclosed.
I'm not a lawyer, but HIPAA prevents "covered entities" such as hospitals from disclosing information. It does not prevent the media from saying anything they please, including deducing that someone in police custody taken to a hospital is being treated for injuries.

So reporters can say whatever they want but it’s always just hearsay because they can’t get official confirmation of anything? Do I understand that correctly?

Seems like if they say somebody is in critical, fair, good, etc condition, that’s a medical evaluation, but without the consent of the person it’s just their guess of what the condition is - since nobody medical can verify that for them. Is that right?

I believe the purpose of HIPAA was to place a system-wide burden on the health care industry and disguise it as something meant to protect citizens. Every time a doctor or nurse needs to get information from another source they need to jump through hoops. Multiply that across the system and you have more skyrocketing health care costs.

First of all, let’s face it. Nobody cared all that much about the issue—that is, it wasn’t a huge problem because doctors and nurses have always been respectful of the privacy of medical records.

As with everything done by democrats (or rinos) and having to do with big government, it accomplishes the opposite of what it claimed to intend—by dragging down the health care system.

Thanks, democrats. The enablement of self-destruction is perpetrated by the socialist and by the democrat voter.