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RCW 70.02.020

Disclosure by health care provider.

Applied in 25 court decisions — leading case Berger v. Sonneland (2001)

Most recently applied in 196 Wash. 2d 578 - Hermanson v. Multicare Health Sys., Inc. (November 2020)

2014 c 220 s 5; 2013 c 200 s 2; 2005 c 468 s 2; 1993 c 448 s 2; 1991 c 335 s 201.

How often courts cite this section

1994200020102020100
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Except as authorized elsewhere in this chapter, a health care provider, an individual who assists a health care provider in the delivery of health care, or an agent and employee of a health care provider may not disclose health care information about a patient to any other person without the patient's written authorization. A disclosure made under a patient's written authorization must conform to the authorization.

(2) A patient has a right to receive an accounting of disclosures of health care information made by a health care provider or a health care facility in the six years before the date on which the accounting is requested, except for disclosures:

(a) To carry out treatment, payment, and health care operations;

(b) To the patient of health care information about him or her;

(c) Incident to a use or disclosure that is otherwise permitted or required;

(d) Pursuant to an authorization where the patient authorized the disclosure of health care information about himself or herself;

(e) Of directory information;

(f) To persons involved in the patient's care;

(g) For national security or intelligence purposes if an accounting of disclosures is not permitted by law;

(h) To correctional institutions or law enforcement officials if an accounting of disclosures is not permitted by law; and

(i) Of a limited data set that excludes direct identifiers of the patient or of relatives, employers, or household members of the patient.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.