Strick medical confidentiality under HIPAA and mental health care professional’s affirmative duty to warn clash in federal and state law. Learn to identify the specific HIPAA privacy exceptions found in federal law that allow for – and sometimes even mandate via state law -- breaches of patient confidentiality when a health care practitioner has an affirmative duty to warn of a patient’s specific threat of violence. But to warn of what?

This advanced webinar provides an overview of HIPAA and the duty to warn under state law. When HIPAA exceptions exist to comply with a state law duty to warn, is that HIPAA compliance permissive or mandatory? This webinar includes state tort standards creating this liability for mental health care professionals and harmonizes it with HIPAA privacy and its applicable exceptions.

When there is a duty to warn as allowed by HIPAA privacy exceptions, what are the elements to compliance? These elements are typically called a “safe harbor” that shield the health care professional from liability if he or she complies with the safe harbor mandates – each and every one. Basic state laws will be reviewed giving a safe harbor under patient confidentiality and HIPAA exceptions.

Next, this webinar will cover three important state law cases and a new fourth case of importance detailing how the duty to warn and HIPAA applies.

An analysis of these three established court cases and a fourth breaking case guide the attendee on real-world outcomes from actual cases of life and death. 

Finally, the attendee will learn basic tips and techniques to avoid liability by understanding the applicable HIPAA confidentiality exceptions, state law duty to warn, safe harbor elements, and guidance from the courts.

Areas Covered in the Session:-

• HIPAA privacy exceptions for state-law duty to warn
• State tort standards imposing a common law duty to warn
• State statures giving a safe harbor for the common law duty to warn
• Three cases and three outcomes – a detailed analysis, and
• Basic tips and techniques to defend yourself from liability.

Background:-

The background to this webinar is for any mental health care practitioner and any risk manager for any psychiatric office, clinic, or hospital. Training in mental health laws where specific violence is threatened to a specific target will avoid the fear, confusion, and doubt about how this duty to warn laws to apply to any given set of facts.

Level:-

Advanced

Why Should You Attend?

This new webinar identifies and applies exceptions to HIPAA confidentiality where state law mandates a duty to warn of a patient’s specific threat of violence against an identified person or group.  Erase the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that occurs when the duty to warn laws conflict with HIPAA confidentiality in a mental health context.  Understand HIPAA exceptions as applied to the duty to warn – these are matters of life and death for mental health practitioners.

Who Will Benefit?

Health care law attorneys; licensed health care practitioners in private practice in mental health; medical directors of mental health facilities; office managers and medical directors of private medical offices in mental health; health care managers and executives in mental health; corporate counsel in health care; health care administrators; university faculty in health care and mental health; allied health professionals in graduate-level medical education across the many health care professions; corporate compliance officers