OPIS Mgmt. Res. LLC v. Fla. Agency for Health Care Admin. (Summary)

HIPAA

OPIS Mgmt. Res. LLC v. Fla. Agency for Health Care Admin., No. 12-12593 (11th Cir. Apr. 9, 2013)

The United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling that a Florida statute requiring nursing homes to release medical records to the spouse or attorney-in-fact of a deceased resident was preempted by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”).

The suit was filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) by spouses and attorneys-in-fact for deceased residents after several nursing homes refused to release the records because the parties requesting them were not “personal representatives” under HIPAA.  OCR concluded that the nursing homes’ actions were consistent with HIPAA.  Nonetheless, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration fined the nursing facilities for violating Florida law by refusing to release the records.  The nursing homes filed a suit for declaratory judgment in federal district court seeking a ruling that HIPAA preempted the Florida law.  The district court issued the declaratory judgment and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling.  In doing so, the Eleventh Circuit observed that Florida law designating spouses and attorneys-in-fact as those who may demand access to a deceased resident’s medical records did not require that these individuals be acting “on behalf” of the resident to receive the medical records.  On the other hand, the HIPAA privacy regulations specifically required a personal representative to be acting on behalf of the deceased resident and that the protected health information to be released had to be relevant to such personal representation.  Based on this discrepancy, the court concluded that Florida law affords nursing home residents less protection than HIPAA and, thus, is preempted by HIPAA.