A hospital in Ohio does not have to produce laboratory results of a patient accused of transmitting an infectious illness to a hospital roommate, an appeals court ruled in December.
Ohio law does not allow discovery of nonparty medical records without the consent of the party regardless of whether personal information in those records has been redacted, a state appeals court ruled Dec. 4 (Bednarik v. St. Elizabeth Health Center).
The Ohio Court of Appeals, Seventh District, said discovery of nonparty laboratory results is prohibited by the physician-patient privilege regardless of alleged need and regardless of whether all personally identifiable information has been redacted. An exception to the privilege would have to be enacted by the Ohio Legislature and it has not done so, the court said.
The appeals court rejected efforts by plaintiff Carol Bednarik to require St. Elizabeth Health Center to produce lab results of a patient with whom she shared a hospital room and who was allegedly diagnosed with the infectious disease methicillin resistant staph aureus (MRSA). Bednarik, who at the time she shared the room was recovering from back surgery, also contracted the disease and sought to use the documents to show hospital negligence.
A state trial court called for the hospital to release the results with all personal information redacted but the appeals court reversed, citing Roe v. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region, a July decision in which the Ohio Supreme Court held state law does not create a right to discover confidential medical records of nonparties in a private lawsuit.
The appeals court noted that the trial court hearing Bednarik’s claims had relied on Biddle v. Warren General Hospital, 715 N.E.2d 518 (Ohio 1999). The trial court, however, issued its decision months before the Roe court ruled that the balancing test it created in Biddle applied only as a defense to claims of unauthorized disclosure of confidential medical information.
The Roe court had also said that whether the public policy issues advanced by the party seeking the records are sufficient to overcome the nonparties’ privacy rights is a matter better addressed to the Ohio General Assembly than the judiciary, the appeals court noted.
The appeals court also noted a more recent action by the state supreme court summarily reversing a May 2008 decision by a state appeals court in Cepeda v. Lutheran Hosp. The Eighth District Appeals Court in that case ruled that billing records of a doctor accused of performing unnecessary surgeries were discoverable, despite the fact that the documents were covered by the patient-physician privilege and that requiring production of the patient information pursuant to a court order did not violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
"The case before us indisputably revolves around the application of the Biddle exception to discovery," the appeals court said.
"Since Roe has now held that Biddle does not create the right to discover confidential medical records and that such records cannot be disclosed in the absence of legislative enactment, the Supreme Court has precluded appellee from forcing discovery of a non-party patient’s privileged medical records (redacted or not). As such, we are forced to reverse the trial court’s decision on the basis of Roe," the appeals court concluded.
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