tci General Surgery Coding Alert - 2024 Issue Q2

Reader Questions: Discover How To Handle Family History Information

Question: When our surgeons get referrals for procedures, the referring physician sometimes includes information about the patient’s family medical history (FMH). Is that information protected by HIPAA? Can physicians share FMH, or do they need permission first? Iowa Subscriber Answer: Yes, a patient’s family medical history constitutes protected health information (PHI) and sharing it with a consultant is considered an incidental sharing of PHI. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), a patient’s FMH becomes PHI once it’s part of the medical record. “When a covered...

To read the full article, sign in and subscribe to tci General Surgery Coding Alert.


Leverage vital, to-the-point monthly guidance to boost your reporting accuracy and your coding know-how. We make it convenient for your team to stay informed, compliant, and profitable with a subscription to TCI’s General Surgery Coding Alert.

  • Current newsletters added each month
  • Fully searchable archives - over 2100 articles
  • ALL years/issues back to 1999 organized by year and issue
  • Codes mentioned in articles are linked to Code Information pages
  • Code Information pages link back to related articles
Access to this feature is available in the following products:
  • tci General Surgery Coding Alert +Archives

demo
request yours today
 subscribe
start today
 newsletter
free subscription

Thank you for choosing Find-A-Code, please Sign In to remove ads.