Pubdate: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 Source: Houston Chronicle, page 2A (http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/nation/97/09/10/medicine.20.html) Contact: Plan would provide police greater access to medical records By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times WASHINGTON Bowing to federal and state lawenforcement authorities, Clinton administration officials will soon propose legislation that would allow police officers to gain broad access to patients' medical records, with hardly any restrictions on use or redisclosure of the data. While lawenforcement authorities frequently negotiate access to such materials now, the administration recommends that health care providers and those who pay for such care be explicitly "permitted to disclose health information without patient authorization" when the records are sought by federal or state investigators. The proposal is significant because federal and state officials have, in recent years, placed a high priority on investigations of fraud in the trilliondollar health care industry. They sift through tens of thousands of patients' records while investigating suspected abuses by hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, laboratories, health plans and suppliers of medical equipment. Health care fraud investigations by the FBI alone tripled over the last five years, to more than 2,200 in 1996, as officials tried to save money for the government by cracking down on fraud. "We recommend that providers and payers be permitted to rely on the statement of lawenforcement officials that an inquiry meets these standards," the administration says in a report drafted for submission to Congress. Donna Shalala, the secretary of health and human services, plans to announce the proposals at a congressional hearing Thursday. The administration will propose safeguards that limit access to medical records by employers, researchers, drug manufacturers and directmarketing companies, among others. It would establish civil and criminal penalties for misuse of records. But lawenforcement agencies would be exempt from most of the standards. Under the administration's proposal, it would be easier for investigators to have access to medical records than to records of banks, cable television, video rental stores or e mail users, all of which are protected by federal privacy statutes. Under a 1996 law intended to make health insurance more readily available to millions of Americans, the secretary was required to develop comprehensive recommendations on medical privacy. The administration proposal would not require lawenforcement agencies to get court orders or to notify patients when they seek medical records. Patients would not be assured of an opportunity to challenge the disclosure of their files, though the records could later be used against them in investigations or prosecutions. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services said Shalala had not resisted the demands of lawenforcement authorities.