DENVER — Under a new federal rule, patients have a right to privacy with their medical information even if they travel to another state for an abortion, birth control or in vitro fertilization.
This new rule would stop those regulated by HIPAA, like health care providers, from using or disclosing a person's protected information to investigate them or hold them liable for simply seeking, providing or obtaining legal reproductive health care.
"The intention is really to prohibit the disclosure of patient information and specifically as it relates to reproductive health care," said Erin Seedorf, an associate professor in MSU Denver's Public Health program. "The goal is really to strengthen privacy protections for the patient, for their families and for doctors who are providing or facilitating care."
Seedorf said this change is designed to prevent medical records from being used against someone who provided or received reproductive care.
"Even if that patient has traveled across state lines to receive the care, it's really trying to create protections so that there is information that can be shared across providers but that's protected," Seedorf said.
The new federal guidance comes nearly two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, with abortion bans in place in more than a dozen states.
As more people come to states like Colorado seeking abortion care, Seedorf said this new rule ensures their medical info can't be used against them, taking away fear for both doctors and patients when they need to provide those records.
"I think it's come out of a need to really assure that patient privacy in this particular area is maintained so that patients can be confident that their continuation of care will happen even in this era," Seedorf said. "So it's just affording that this is not going to be information that's accessed for the wrong reasons."
While it might seem confusing that reproductive care wasn't protected like this previously, Seedorf said it's not unusual for federal officials to update HIPAA when times or technology change. It was updated when doctors' offices switched from paper to electronic health records, and was updated to prevent employers from using genetic information within health insurance.
This change is another way health leaders are seeing a potential risk to patient info and are updating policies to make sure that information is always protected, Seedorf said.
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