Among the many other effects of the new federal medical privacy law (see Oct. 23, Nov. 9, Jan. 21): clergy “now can look in on only those patients who have requested visits”. Result: if a longtime parishioner is admitted to the hospital unconscious, or just doesn’t realize that an affirmative request is required, the clergyman may be barred from entering the room to pray with or for them. “Before HIPAA, [Father Casey] Mahone said he could look at a list of Catholic patients and visit the ones he knew. ”People kind of had the mentality that they were going to be “discovered” by their priest in the hospital,’ he said. ‘If we didn’t find them, they were disappointed.'” “[Rev. Jack] Flint said he wanted to pray with a woman before she died from injuries suffered in an automobile accident. ”But because (the hospital) couldn’t release her name, I was lost,’ he lamented. ‘I didn’t get to do that.’ Instead of his calling her family to pray at her bedside, her family called him to pray at her funeral.” (“Health privacy law hinders clergy visits at hospital”, AP/Morgantown, W.V. Dominion Post, Feb. 3). More: GruntDoc, Feb. 5 (and see reader comments).

Filed under: HIPAA, hospitals, medical