Opinion ID: 2191418
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: III-B-3 Disclosure of Medical Information.

Text: Section 1315(1)(A) [23] of the Maine Act authorizes, with limitations, the disclosure to consumers of medical information, defined in 10 M.R.S.A. § 1312(8) as information or records obtained, directly or indirectly and with the consent of the individual to whom it relates, from a licensed physician, medical practitioner, hospital, clinic or other medical or medically related facility. The Federal Act defines medical information similarly but excludes it from mandated disclosure as follows: Every consumer reporting agency shall. . . disclose to the consumer: (1) The nature and substance of all information (except medical information) in its files on the consumer at the time of the request. 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(a)(1) (1974). In Retail Credit Co. v. Dade County, Florida, supra , the preemption issue was raised by a challenge to the constitutionality of a provision in a Dade County Ordinance like that in Section 1315(1)(A). From examination of the Congressional legislative history the court learned that Congress had several times considered and rejected a provision basically similar to the one before it, [24] and it therefore concluded that Congress had plainly manifested intendment to refuse disclosure of medical information to consumers. Despite the Federal Act's unqualified exclusion from disclosure of medical information, we think that the particular danger Congress sought to avoid thereby is sufficiently averted by the procedures set up in Section 1315(1)(A) to avoid nullification of them by federal preemption. The principal purpose of the federal unqualified exclusion, by definition applicable only to formal medical records, was revealed in the Committee Report to the House Amendment adding to Section 1681a(e) of the Federal Act the definition of the term medical information. The Report said that [t]he rationale was that raw medical information should only be tendered with the counsel of a physician or other medically trained personnel. H.R.Report No. 91-975, 91st Cong., 2nd Sess., reprinted in [1970] U.S.Code. Cong. & Admin.News, p. 4394, at 4414. Section 1315(1)(A) of the Maine Act is in harmony with this rationale, since it authorizes disclosure of medical information only to a licensed physician who may be expected to exercise professional judgment regarding further disclosure to the consumer. Thus, the Maine Act does not expose the consumer to raw medical information. We are aware that Section 1315(1)(A) may not tend to serve a secondary purpose underlying the Federal Act's exclusion of medical information from disclosure: avoidance of an undermining of the traditional doctor-patient relationship that could arise because the physician to whom the information is disclosed might not be the same physician who had treated the consumer. 116 Cong. Rec. 17634 (October 9, 1970). See Retail Credit Co. v. Dade County, Florida, supra, at 582. We deem this too minor a divergence, however, to require applicability of preemption. We say this particularly since the physician who treated the patient will probably have kept medical records and will be able to advise the physician who receives the disclosed information; or else such records will likely be under the control of a medical facility where another physician may have access to them with the consumer's consent. Accordingly, we sustain Section 1315(1)(A) of the Maine Act as not inconsistent with the purposes and objectives of the Federal Act.