Pa. patient fights for her allergy records
A Pennsylvania patient is fighting for access to her medical records.
Donna Kubat of Allen Township was switching physicians and asked Allen Ear, Nose and Throat Association in South Whitehall Township to send her records to her new doctor, according to an article published in The Morning Call.
The practice forwarded treatment notes but withheld other records, explaining in a letter that "as a patient safety measure," it doesn't release "allergy testing or allergy serum records to other practices/providers for treatment purposes."
Kubat disagrees with that policy. "I have the right to know what they were injecting into my body every week," she said.
Allen Ear, Nose and Throat cited the state physicians' Code of Conduct, which says a "practitioner may withhold information from a patient if, in the reasonable exercise of his professional judgment, he believes release of the information would adversely affect the patient's health."
"We release all of our records as per the law except for the allergy testing records," the practice's office administrator, Anita Davis said, because they are unique and other providers could harm patients if they tried to replicate them. "We genuinely believe that our policy is based on sound, ethical information."
Kubat filed a complaint last week with the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine, which enforces the state's Code of Conduct, and intends to file one with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which enforces HIPAA.
Allen Ear, Nose and Throat has won other similar cases.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.