Physicians should understand the limits of patient confidentiality and the importance of taking a thorough sexual history in the diagnosis and management of a patient with an STD.
Laura Lin, MBA, JD and Bryan A. Liang, MD, PhD, JD
Physicians are obligated to follow the law regarding HIV reporting and contact notification in the state where they practice while also being sensitive to the impact that disclosure has on individual patients.
Volk v DeMeerleer may conflict with professional guidelines regarding physicians’ obligations to breach patient confidentiality to protect third parties.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(1):10-18. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.1.peer2-1801.
As physicians we decide which tests or treatments go on the bill but have little idea how our decisions impact what patients pay. Now patients, payers, and policymakers are demanding that we consider the cost of our recommendations.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.