[Physician confidentiality and information owed to the insurance companies]

The ethical problems and deontological consequences, following the insurance companies request about medical care to their insured, was analysed. We have had in mind the patient's right to privacy and the doctor's commitment to confidentiality, on the one hand, and the insurance company's right to the necessary information, on the other. We analysed the health questionnaires of the insurance companies. And we administered a questionnaire to specialists of an University Hospital, and to employees in General Services: business administration, promotion, admissions, and archive of clinical records. The client's signature on the health questionnaire authorizes the doctors and centres to provide the insuring body with complete information regarding the client's state of health in most of the companies. All the insurance companies, 8 of the 11 mutual benefit societies, and all the public health services had asked the doctor directly for information about their clients. The confidentiality of patients' medical records with regard to the insuring bodies is not generally conceptualised in terms of legality or illegality, but conflicts of professional ethics do arise. It is the doctors and the representatives of the health care centres who have to safeguard the patients' rights.