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Can patients require our facility to send mail to alternative locations?

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, June 21, 2002

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Q: As a health care provider, is our facility required to honor requests by patients to send mail to alternative locations?

A: You must accept and accommodate reasonable requests by patients to receive communications of protected health information (PHI) by alternative means or at alternative locations.

The HHS commentary provides the example of a patient who does not want his or her family members to know about a certain treatment. The patient may request that the provider communicate about that treatment at his or her place of employment, by mail to a designated address, or by phone to a designated phone number. Similarly, a patient may request that the provider send communications in a closed envelope rather than a post card.

You may not require the patient to explain the reason for the request as a condition of abiding by it. A health plan can only require that a request contain a statement that disclosure of all or part of the information could endanger the individual.

Covered entities can condition the provision of a reasonable accommodation on:

• when appropriate, information as to how payment will be handled
• specification of an alternative address or other method of contact
• documentation of the request in writing

Covered entities can determine how reasonable the request is solely on the basis of the administrative difficulty of complying with it.

Brought to you by attorneys Marty Baxter and Gretchen McBeath at Bricker and Eckler, LLP (http://www.bricker.com/hipaa) and The Quality Management Consulting Group, Ltd. (http://www.qmcg.com). E-mail: mbaxter@bricker.com or gmcbeath@bricker.com

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