Records of minors' sex-related care ruled private by Indiana court

In the Courts. By Bonnie Booth, AMNews contributor. Feb. 12, 2007.

When a physician talks to an Indiana minor about treatment for a reproductive health condition related to sexual activity, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has said the conversation is private.

The decision late last year in Planned Parenthood v. Carter stymied Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter's effort to force Planned Parenthood of Indiana to turn over medical records of 73 low-income girls who sought medical services that could have ranged from counseling to pregnancy tests. After the ruling, a Carter spokesperson said the attorney general would not appeal the court's ruling to the state Supreme Court. That decision effectively ended a standoff that began in spring 2005 when the Indiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit started demanding the records.

The ruling is good news for Indiana physicians, who now have a stated right to keep their minor patients' records confidential, and it adds to a growing body of law across the country holding that there is a privacy right for medical records.

Physicians often are associated with medical clinics named as plaintiffs in these types of lawsuits, or doctors become plaintiffs themselves in an effort to keep their patients medical records private.

In fact, while the courts rarely grant third parties the right to make a legal claim on behalf of someone else, physicians and other health care professionals often are the exception. Doctors traditionally have been able to sue on behalf of their patients in privacy cases like this, because they can show they have suffered a concrete injury that can be remedied, that there is a close relationship with the third-party patient and that the patient is hindered from protecting his or her own interests.