Can agencies release a victim's name if they're treated by agency first responders?
Asked by Michael Morisy on November 28, 2013.
3 answers from Chris Meller, Shawn Musgrave and Carlton Purvis.
From a Massachusetts reader:
Ran into an interesting situation this morning and wanted to ask your thoughts: Requested, through the town fire chief, the incident report on a guy who fell off a building yesterday and was Medflighted out of town. Fire Department did the manual work of getting the guy from the building site to the helicopter. I was looking for his name and address to I could check condition.
The chief told me that HIPAA prevented the release of the info. I don’t know that it does or doesn’t – first time I’ve heard this response; usually there’s no problem getting victim info.
It’s a few years old, but this article at RCFP has some interesting thoughts on HIPAA versus public records: http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/open-records-law-trumps-hipaa-records-request-case
I know this is a little old now, but I just saw it.
HHS actually has a FAQ entry specifically about this.
Essentially, state law trumps the Privacy Rule of HIPAA, so it’s up to the Massachusetts FOIA law.