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Court rules a patient list is a protected trade secret

In the Courts. By Tanya Albert, amednews staff. Nov. 8, 2004.

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Doctors are continuously reminded to think of their practices as businesses, and a recent court case in Pennsylvania underscores the importance of that logic when it comes to patient lists.

The physician-patient relationship is sacrosanct in some parts of the law: Courts have ruled that what physicians and patients talk about behind closed doors is confidential, and some have ruled that doctors can't be forced to testify against their patients.

So it might seem logical that employed or contracted physicians should be able to take the names and contact information of the patients they've been treating and building relationships with if they decide to leave a practice.

But physicians need to check their contracts and state laws before making that move.

More likely than not, that list is a trade secret, and employed or contracting physicians can get in legal trouble for just taking it.

It's proprietary information, and courts in most cases wouldn't treat the situation any differently from someone in a sales position taking the customer list from his or her company and using it to start his or her own company.

That was the ruling in one doctor vs. doctor lawsuit that a Philadelphia trial court ruled on in October.

"The lesson for physicians is that just because you treated patients at a practice, you don't own the list of the practice," said David Landau, one of the attorneys who represented a dermatologist who sued two contracting physicians for taking patient lists and copies of the appointment book when they left. "A confidential patient list is a core asset of a medical practice."