Education Department Seeking Public Comment on Student Medical Privacy Guidance
The Education Department is seeking public input on its draft guidance on protecting student medical privacy, wrote its Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Styles in a blog post this week. “Recently, the Department has been asked if it is possible and/or…
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appropriate for campus officials to share confidential medical records from on-campus services with university attorneys in the context of litigation between a university and a student,” Styles wrote. This sharing is potentially “allowable” if the university attorneys have a “legitimate educational interest” in the records, she said. But sharing a student’s sensitive medical records “may discourage the use of medical services provided on campus,” Styles said. Citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Styles said the department wants to “set the expectation that, with respect to litigation between institutions of higher education and students, institutions generally should not share student medical records with school attorneys or courts, without a court order or written consent.” Litigation directly related to the medical treatment itself or to the payment of medical treatment would be exempt, she said. Public comments on the proposed guidance will be accepted until Oct. 2.