Patient privacy concerns are at an all-time high following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Following their statements affirming that abortion constitutes basic and essential health to which every woman should be entitled issued by both Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of Civil Rights of HHS (“OCR”) released new guidance on June 29^th clarifying scenarios when an individual’s protected health information (“PHI”) may, but does not have to be, released. One such example is disclosures required for law enforcement purposes. OCR explains that the Privacy Rule permits, but does not require covered entities to disclose PHI about an individual for law enforcement purposes “pursuant to process and as otherwise required by law”, under certain conditions. For example, “a covered entity may respond to a law enforcement request made through such legal processes as a court order or court-ordered warrant, or a subpoena or summons, by disclosing only the requested PHI, provided that all of the conditions specified in the Privacy Rule for permissible law enforcement disclosures are met.” It states further:

“[i]n the absence of a mandate enforceable in a court of law, the Privacy Rule’s permission to disclose PHI for law enforcement purposes does not permit a disclosure to law enforcement where a hospital or other health care provider’s workforce member chose to report an individual’s abortion or other reproductive health care. That is true whether the workforce member initiated the disclosure to law enforcement or others or the workforce member disclosed PHI at the request of law enforcement. This is because, generally, state laws do not require doctors or other health care providers to report an individual who self-managed the loss of a pregnancy to law enforcement. Also, state fetal homicide laws generally do not penalize the pregnant individual, and ‘appellate courts have overwhelmingly rejected efforts to use existing criminal and civil laws intended for other purposes (e.g., to protect children) as the basis for arresting, detaining, or forcing interventions on pregnant’ individuals.”

With patients and providers alike scrambling for answers in both the many states that have opted to ban or severely limit abortions, and those states that are considered “safe havens,” the legal landscape will slowly but surely start to take shape.