Acquisition of Patient Information

Compliance with HIPAA

This is to clarify and confirm the authority of the New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Occupational Health ("Bureau") to access, inspect and copy, consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA):

Patient information, including but not limited to, names, addresses, phone numbers, date of birth, gender, ethnicity, occupation and industry, as well as exposure, medical and diagnostic information.

The Bureau's authority to access, inspect and copy the information described above is set forth in Public Health Law §206(1)(d), 206 (1)(e), 206 (1)(j), and 225(5)(t) and 10 N.Y.C.R.R. §22.4 and 22.5. This information is collected by the New York State Occupational Lung Disease Registry for the purpose of public health surveillance.

Such access has been determined by the NYS Department of Health to be the minimum necessary for protected health information for the stated purpose in compliance with 45 C.F.R. 164.502. Please note that federal regulations permit reasonable reliance given attendant circumstances regarding requests for information made by public officials for stated purposes and by requests made by one covered entity (e.g., the Medicaid program) to another. 45 C.F.R. §164.514(d).

Federal regulations, 45 C.F.R. Part 164.512 authorize disclosure without patient consent in a number of circumstances, including the following:

Disclosure is permitted to a public health authority authorized by law to access information to prevent/control disease, injury, and disability, e.g., disease reporting, vital statistics reporting, public health surveillance, public health investigations, public health interventions and partner notification.

If you have any questions with respect to authority to access, inspect and copy personally identifiable iformation, please call 518-402-7900 or 1-800-458-1158.