Preparing for the brave new world, Part 4: "Minimum necessary" disclosures under HIPAA

"Minimum information given with maximum politeness," Jacqueline Kennedy once directed a White House press secretary. Decades later, a pending federal health-privacy rule says nothing about courtesy but does explicitly require a "minimum necessary" standard for most disclosures of personally identifiable information. Physician practices that understand these two key words will have a head start in complying with the privacy regulations, which were published in December 2000 under authority of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). This article, the final installment of a four-part series on how the HIPAA privacy rule will affect the day-to-day lives of physicians and their staffs, focuses on what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) means by "minimum necessary."