Home Health & Hospice Week

Do you need to slog through more paperwork hassle when you want to confer with another health care practitioner about a patient? You do not need the patient’s permission in that scenario, the Department of Health and Human Services assures in recent guidance.

“The Privacy Rule does not require you to obtain a signed consent form before sharing information for treatment purposes,” HHS says in its Fast Facts for Covered Entities document. “Health care providers can freely share information for treatment purposes without a signed patient authorization.”

Of course, if you are talking on the phone, you must still meet the regulations set out in the privacy rule to ensure that only the two clinicians can hear the information being discussed. Make sure no one can overhear your conversation and that the call is taking place on a secure line.