Colleges Don’t Always Keep Medical Records Secret
If you don’t want your parents to know about your health care — for example, if you are getting tested for STIs or are seeking mental health care and want them to refuse — go to an off-campus hospital.
The hospital has HIPAA rules : you have the right to restrict who will see your medical records, at least when you become an adult. (Parents are usually allowed to view the records of their minor children , although this varies by state and situation.) On the other hand, university health centers are not bound by this rule.
If the information about your care is considered an “educational record,” the rules of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act apply instead. These records can be shared with the school and parents can see them if they claim you are a dependent of their taxes.
When a university medical center sends a student to a hospital, the boundaries blur. ProPublica reports on students who have been burned by schools disclosing information they believed to be confidential. Therefore, if you want to protect your privacy while at school, consider this when choosing the best place to seek medical attention.
Confidentiality Suffers When Students Become Patients | ProPublica
Photo by CDC Global .
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