Ethical Principles

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Mollie Burdick

April 6, 2013

HC 310 Medical Law & Ethics

Herzing University Online

I do not think that Mary should give the charts to Dr. Jerome for the simple reason, he is not Ida’s doctor nor did was he asked by her doctor to take over her case nor was he asked by Ida to take over her cases. I feel she was right legally and ethically right by not giving the chart up. It really did not matter if Dr. Jerome knew her family or treated them or not. He had no rights to the knowledge that was in her chart. He was stepping over his bounds as a professional by invading her privacy. Without a court order or written permission he had no right to ask and he defiantly had no legal rights to just take the chart this was a breach of confidentiality.

As for the ethical principles, he disrespected Mary by asking her to do something that was against the law to begin with. Mary would have violated the privacy rules first, and violated Ida’s trust and faith that her medical information would be secure. He also had no right to threaten Mary to report her for doing her job. She did the right thing and if anyone should have been reported it should have been Dr. Jerome.

Dr. Jerome breached the confidentiality laws and this is more extensive than ethical guidelines, which dictate the morally right thing to do. Maintaining patient’s confidentiality is a legal duty as well as an ethical one. Dr. Jerome violated the federal privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. 1996. Dr Jerome could also be guility of going against the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Rules, [On February 16, 2006, HHS published a final rule that details the procedures for imposing civil money penalties on covered entities that violate any of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Rules, including security, privacy, transactions, and code sets. Failure to comply with the requirements will result in criminal and monetary...