Pastoral Development > HIPAA Privacy Guidelines

Since attending to the spiritual and emotional support of those in your community often includes interfacing with them during times of medical exigencies, it is important to know about HIPAA laws and policies regarding patient privacy.

Of course, confidentiality on your part is always expected as a professional responsibility, but HIPAA laws make taking this very seriously.

There is another side to the impact of HIPPA laws on your ministry other than your own need to maintain confidentiality. In years prior to HIPAA laws, hospitals routinely would contact a local church when a member was admitted for treatment if the person specified a church and/or pastor in their admittance documents. HIPPA laws no longer allow this.

Unfortunately, many members feel they have done their duty to inform their church/pastor once they have provided this information on the admittance forms. And they (and their families) will often hold you accountable for not having visited them while they were in the hospital. It is often hard to convince them that you were not made aware of it.

The only way known to deal with this is to make sure your people know about the impact of HIPPA laws. You will need to explain it to them in your church bulletins, newsletters, e-communications, and even from up front. And you will need to do this more than once. If you are blessed with a congregation where new people are frequently coming to your church, you will need to do this regularly.

If you need a refresher on the HIPAA laws and how they work, read this document.