Question

10. Mary Smith has been a patient of Dr. Williams from 1985 to the present time. During that time, she has had three children and been treated for a variety of conditions, including depression in 1986 and herpes in 1990. Mary and her husband, George, have filed for divorce. George wants custody of the children and is claiming that Mary has a medical condition that makes her an unfit mother. An attorney, acting on George’s behalf in the divorce proceedings, has obtained a subpoena for Mary’s medical records for the years 1995 to the present. Dr. Williams’ assistant, who is a medical records technician, copies Mary’s entire medical record from 1985 to the present and sends it to the attorney.
What error was committed? What negative effect for Mary might this error cause? Is it a violation of confidentiality? Why/why not? Was it appropriate for the assistant to make a copy of any part of Mary's medical record? Why/why not? Is the physician responsible? Explain.

Answer 1

Ans) Dr. Williams’s assistant was wrong for two reasons.

- The first issue is she should not send the records at all to the attorney until the date specified on the subpoena. The reason for this is that often the subpoena is squashed by the other side’s attorney before the date. The medical records should never be copied and sent before that date as the other attorney is working hard to squash it and often wins.

- The second issue is that the assistant should not have copied the entire medical record from 1985 to present. The subpoena only called for medical records from 1995 to present. You should never disclose any records other than the specific ones named in the subpoena.