Cleveland HIPAA Violation Lawyer
In Ohio, a patient’s right to privacy of their medical records emanates from both federal law and state common law. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) provides the essential federal regulatory framework for protection of patients’ protected healthcare information. OhioHealth Corp. v. Ryan (2012), 2012-Ohio-60, 10AP-937. However, HIPAA laws do not include a private right of action, so claims must proceed pursuant to Ohio common law claim for violation of the right to privacy. Many people still wrongly refer to these cases as “HIPAA violation” cases.
The basic elements of a claim for violation of the right to privacy is set forth in Biddle vs. Warren Gen. Hosp. (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 395. The syllabus in Biddle provides as follows: “In Ohio, an independent tort exists for the unauthorized, unprivileged disclosure to a third party of nonpublic medical information that a physician or a hospital has learned within a physician-patient relationship.” This rule has been applied to other healthcare providers, such as hospital