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The public duties of the healthcare professional require a significant amount of reporting. Recent legislation, specifically HIPAA, requires that all patients' Protected Health Information be kept confidential. Consider a patient who has a highly contagious and dangerous disease, like meningitis. It appears that public safety may conflict with HIPAA requirements for patient confidentiality. Does protecting the public outweigh maintaining a patient's medical confidentiality? Why or why not? Explain your position.

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Protecting the public does not outweigh maintaining a patient's medical confidentiality. It is the patient's decision whether this information is released. A patient's medical records could be embarassing if they have an STD, or something else. There could be an announcement that *someone* has meningitis.
User Axes Grinds
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