Hospital Disregards Patient Privacy for TV Show

Anita Chanko’s 83-year-old husband, Mark, was struck by a sanitation truck over a year ago, and she was not permitted to ride in the ambulance with him when he was rushed to the emergency room, where he died shortly after arrival. Over a year later while watching an episode of NY Med, a reality show filmed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, she saw her husband’s doctor say a man came in who had been hit by a truck and knew it was not a coincidence. She saw a blurred image of her husband on the screen, recognizing his voice as she heard him ask, “Does my wife know I’m here?” Nobody from the hospital had told her that her husband had been filmed; nobody had told her what her husband had said; nobody asked her if NY Med could air his last moments on national television.

                                                          

When a family member is hospitalized, we operate under the assumption that the hospital will provide the privacy and discretion we assume. Upon entrance, extensive Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) forms are signed by both doctors and patients as a confidentiality agreement. Congress implemented this law in 1996, and these forms basically serve as a privacy guarantee for a patient’s medical information. More than 1.26 billion forms are signed each year for doctors’ visits alone.

                                                                      

However, fictional hospital dramas such as House and Grey’s Anatomy have captured a public interest in televises trauma/ER situations. In order to meet that need, real hospitals have been allowing network film crews to show patients’ experiences in a reality-show format. The issue with this is that they have not been asking for consent from patients or their families.

Hospitals seem to be hiding behind the mounds of paperwork in the HIPAA forms and the law that supposedly protects our privacy. The truth is that all that paperwork may not really mean what most Americans think it means. So much paperwork gives the illusion that the law is inviolable. The fine for simple violation, however, is only $100, and according to the Washington Post, the Justice Department has only prosecuted two criminal cases involving abuse of medical privacy. One was for stolen credit card information, and the other was for releasing an FBI agent’s files. Only two cases ever out of more than one billion forms a year. How can there be such a gulf between what a law is supposed to do and what it actually is enforcing? Why isn't the document doctors are told so much about not being considered in this case?

Anita lost her initial suit and is appealing in a civil court later this year.