HIPAA

U.S. v. Bek, No. 05-4198 (7th Cir. July 6, 2007)

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's judgment against a physician, holding that where government agents properly obtained a warrant before seizing any of a physician's patient records, they were allowed under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA") to disclose the medical records in a judicial proceeding without patient authorization. The court held that in order for this exception to HIPAA's general requirement of patient authorization to apply, the court hearing the case must have entered into a protective order: (1) prohibiting the parties from disclosing the records outside the confines of the litigation; and (2) requiring that the records be returned to the health care entity or destroyed at the end of the litigation.