Opinion ID: 2334690
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Privacy Rights under the Patient's Privacy Protection Act

Text: The plaintiff also alleges that the Richardson Firm violated her privacy rights under the Patient's Privacy Protection Act by having informal conversations with her physician outside a deposition. The Patient's Privacy Protection Act recognizes that all patients entering and receiving care at a licensed health care facility have the expectation of and right to privacy for care received at such facility. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 68-11-1503. To this end, section 68-11-1503 prohibits the divulging of a patient's name and address and other identifying information, subject to four express exceptions. However, disclosing a patient's identifying information in response to a subpoena does not violate the Act. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 68-11-1505. [16] Upon review of the plaintiff's allegations, we conclude that the plaintiff has not stated a claim against Allstate under the Patient's Privacy Protection Act. The plain language of the Act provides a cause of action only for the divulging of protected information, not for the requesting or the obtaining of such information. By restricting the statute's application only to those who divulge a patient's identifying information, the General Assembly did not create a statutory action for the inducement to divulge identifying information. Therefore, because we will not construe statutory language to unduly expand it beyond its plain and obvious import, see Limbaugh v. Coffee Med. Ctr., 59 S.W.3d 73, 83 (Tenn.2001), we hold that the statutory action established by section 68-11-1504 is available only against those persons who (1) have a statutory duty to keep identifying information confidential, and (2) actually divulge that information to parties not falling within a statutory exception. Accordingly, because the plaintiff here has not brought suit directly against her physician or other healthcare providers for divulging her identifying information, we must affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals that the complaint does not state a claim for an invasion of privacy under the Patient's Privacy Protection Act.