CONFIDENTIALITY

CONFIDENTIALITY

In most cases, it is professional misconduct to give
information concerning the condition of a patient or
any services rendered to a patient to any other person
except with the consent of the patient.18 However,
there are some instances in which physicians are able
to, or are required to, disclose personal health information
without patient consent. Examples of these situations
are included below. For further detail, physicians
should consult the College’s Confidentialty of Personal
Health Information policy.

Withdrawal of Consent and Conditional
Consent
Physicians should be aware that patients are entitled to
withdraw their consent to the disclosure of their personal
health information. While this withdrawal will
not affect disclosures made prior to the withdrawal, it
will apply to any disclosures made after the withdrawal.
Physicians should exercise care and caution when disclosing
personal health information, once the patient
has withdrawn his or her consent regarding disclosure.
There may be some situations in which patients will
give their consent to the collection, use or disclosure
of their personal health information, but will impose
conditions or restrictions on the manner in which
their information is used or disclosed. Where patients
wish to give conditional consent, physicians should
ask patients to set out any and all restrictions in writing.
No restriction or condition imposed by a patient
shall prevent physicians from recording information
that is required by law, by standards of professional
practice, or by standards of instititutional practice.
The physician disclosing the record must indicate on
the record that clinically relevant information is missing
from it.

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Patient Requests Transfer

Patient Requests Transfer

If a patient requests that a physician transfer his or her
records, the transfer should take place in a timely fashion.
The physician may charge the patient a reasonable
fee to reflect the cost of the materials used, the time
required to prepare the material and the direct cost of
sending the material to the requesting physician.12
Prepayment of the fee for a transfer of medical records
may only be requested when, in the best judgment of
the treating physician, the patient’s health and safety
will not be put at risk if the records are not transferred.
In some circumstances, it will be desirable for the
transferring physician to prepare a summary of the
records rather than to provide a copy of the whole
record. This is acceptable to the College as long as it is
acceptable to the receiving physician and the patient.
The physician is still obligated to retain the original
record, in its entirety, for the time period required by
regulation.
The obligation to pay the account rests with the
patient or with the third party who has requested the
records. Fulfilling such a request is an uninsured service
and reasonable attempts may be made on the part
of the physician to collect the fee.

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