Family & Friends

May a health care provider discuss a patient’s health status, treatment, or payment arrangements with the patient’s family and friends?

A healthcare provider may share information that is directly relevant to the involvement of a spouse, family members, friends, or other persons identified by a patient, in the patient’s care or payment for health care based on the following conditions.

If the patient is present, or is otherwise available prior to the disclosure, and has the capacity to make health care decisions, the health care provider may discuss this information with the family and these other persons if the patient agrees or, when given the opportunity, does not object. The health care provider may also share relevant information with the family and these other persons if he or she can reasonably infer, based on professional judgment, that the patient does not object. Under these circumstances, for example:

• A doctor may give information about a patient's mobility limitations to a friend driving the patient home from the hospital.
• A hospital may discuss a patient's payment options with his/her adult daughter/son.
• A doctor may instruct a patient's roommate about proper medicine dosage when he/she comes to pick up his/her friend from the hospital.
• A physician may discuss a patient's treatment with the patient in the presence of a friend when the patient brings the friend to a medical appointment and asks if their friend can come into the treatment room.

What if the patient is not present or is incapacitated?

Even when the patient is not present or it is impracticable because of emergency circumstances or the patient’s incapacity for the health care provider to ask the patient about discussing her care or payment with a family member or other person, a health care provider may share this information with the person when, in exercising professional judgment, it determines that doing so would be in the best interest of the patient. Thus, for example:

• A surgeon may, if consistent with such professional judgment, inform a patient's spouse, who accompanied her husband to the emergency room, that the patient has suffered a heart attack and provide periodic updates on the patient's progress and prognosis.
• A doctor may, if consistent, with such professional judgment, discuss an incapacitated patient's condition with a family member over the phone.

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