When it comes to patient privacy, the healthcare world is supposed to have hard and fast rules as to what can and can not be disclosed. Healthcare providers are bound by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) to keep their patients’ information private and to not violate those rights. So imagine the surprise of one woman when she was watching Dr. Oz’s NY Med one night and saw footage of her late husband’s final moments at New York Presbyterian Hospital without her consent.
That incident led to Anita Chenko suing that hospital over the use of that footage of her husband’s heartbreaking last moments, even if his face was obscured throughout the footage. She had remarked that his voice was used and that the footage was so clearly of him. The lawsuit was originally thrown out, but the New York Court of Appeals voted for it to proceed where the hospital was found to be in error, reports Mediaite. Of course, while Dr. Oz has had his fair share of bad press, this one wasn’t actually on him.
While the hospital argued that they specifically didn’t violate HIPAA by releasing the footage, they were still forced to pay the family $2.2 million over releasing the footage to NY Med and Dr. Oz without the family’s consent. If anything, this hammers home a point to healthcare providers everywhere that at times they may be acting within certain parameters of HIPAA, but that there are real consequences to sharing moments such as these with the world. Everyone deserves their dignity.
(via Mediaite)
