| Privacy act brings changes to health care By Erik AlsgaardUMCONNECTION STAFF Until recently, a clergy person could walk into a hospital, ask for a parishioners room number and get that information. Until recently, a pastor could call the hospital and get an update, right over the phone, on a persons medical condition and prognosis. Those days, thanks to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA for short are over.  The bottom line is to protect consumer privacy issues around health information, said Carole Silberhorn, director of pension and health benefits for the Baltimore-Washington Conference.
Clergy need to understand that if a hospital or facility representative cannot share certain information, it is more than likely based on HIPAA rules, she said. The penalty for non-compliance, Silberhorn said, could be severe, including termination of employment. The basic rule is to abide by the hospital or facility rules, she said. All hospitals and medical facilities are required to comply with HIPAA, as well as agencies providing or managing health insurance policies. The requirements also impact how Silberhorns office functions, but those changes are minimal when it comes to what participants in the Baltimore-Washington Conferences medical plans will see. Its more of a mind-set change, said Silberhorn. Were seeing minimal changes affecting participants.  HIPAA actually has two parts. The first introduced in 1996 protects millions of working Americans and their families, according to the Web site of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HIPAA lowers (the) chance of losing existing health care coverage; helps maintain continuous health coverage for yourself and your dependents when you change jobs; and helps you buy health insurance coverage on your own if you lose coverage under an employers group health plan and have no other health coverage available, the Web site says.
The second part, which became law this year, affects privacy issues. All staff in the benefits office, and the Rev. Don Stewart, conference personnel officer, have undergone training to become HIPAA-compliant. All have spent extra time making sure that efforts to comply with HIPAA are as unnoticeable as possible. Silberhorn offered reassurance to clergy who are concerned that prayers voiced from the congregation during worship might violate HIPAA. Pastors (and laity) are still allowed to post and list information on people in their parish as long as that information doesnt come from the annual conference, she said. In other words, if Uncle Jack requests prayers for Aunt Betty and divulges the reasons for the prayer request during worship, HIPAA rules dont kick in. HIPAA or no HIPAA, our attention has been called to a need for greater discrimination in what information we publish written or oral with regard to specific medical conditions without advance consent, said the Rev. James Hunt, serving the Brookfield-Immanuel Charge in Brandywine. We are slowly making changes to accommodate this new level of awareness in our congregations. For example, he said, We are no longer mentioning during worship the medical conditions that bring persons to our (prayer) concern unless we have received advance permission to do so or unless those persons come to our attention through an immediate family member. Hunt said that the churchs prayer list also includes the name of the person who raised the concern. If people need more information they can consult that person, he said. Paramount in this matter, he said, is the churchs prayer ministry. It is not, nor should it ever be, a question of whether we pray for one another. (This is) only a matter of adjusting the process by which someone is included in our prayer life. Hunt says these adjustments are not all bad. I have a growing sense that referring people to relatives for any more detailed information can render our prayers richer for having placed them within the context of relationship, he said. At the conference center, where in the past Silberhorn or her staff were able to report the cause of death to UMConnection for publication in obituaries, this information will no longer be made available. Silberhorn said that when a pastor or lay minister visits a person in the hospital, they must abide by the HIPAA rules that hospital has adopted. Each hospital is doing its own interpretation of the rules, said Silberhorn. She noted that two large hospitals one in Washington and one in Baltimore have done next to nothing in enforcing HIPAA rules. Other hospitals have been more strict. Clergy should go to the hospitals they visit and obtain the HIPAA rules, she said. That way, there wont be any surprises. | 
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