After the Florida Legislature enacted a new law authorizing prospective medical malpractice defendants, their counsel, their insurers, and their witnesses to engage in ex parte interviews with the injured person's treating physicians, CCL, working with Florida lawyers, filed multiple federal and state court challenges to the law as inconsistent with federal privacy rights and violative of Florida constitutional protections. As most people know, health care practitioners provide new patients with a statement of federal privacy rights under a law popularly known by its acronym, HIPAA. These rights provide significant protections of personal health information to prevent disclosure when used for purposes other than to treat the patient's health. In judicial proceedings, federal regulations limit disclosure to what is necessary to assure fair proceedings. The ex parte authorization exceeds that narrow exception.
While CCL's legal challenges proceed, the Florida Medical Association has likened the dispute to a boxing match between doctors and trial lawyers, when in reality the dispute pits patients against the medical establishment, which seeks to discourage redress for injuries by exposing non-relevant private information. The FMA characterization of the dispute is available on their website
