Good Question: What Is HIPAA?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- It's been three weeks since Prince died alone in an elevator at Paisley Park.
And there is still so much we don't know about what happened to the 57-year-old music icon. Part of that is because of medical privacy laws.
So what is HIPAA, and what information does it protect? Good Question.
The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, was created to make sure your medical information can't be seen by just anyone.
But for Prince, who was private in life, some information has been made public after his death.
It's been reported he was taking prescription painkillers.
"You really have to look at who said what to whom," said Dr. Bryan Laskin.
Laskin is a dentist at Lake Minnetonka Dental who invented software to keep patient medical history even more secure.
"There's things that are called 'covered entities' and those people actually have to follow HIPAA," said Laskin.
Those include doctors, pharmacists and insurance clearinghouses, but not family or close friends.
"If it's treatment of health care in an emergency, that physician may have even spoken to somebody in Prince's entourage or somebody with him," said Laskin.
And if that person then talks with the media, there's no HIPAA violation.
If an investigation shows a doctor leaked someone's medical history it becomes a federal crime.
There have been cases where providers have been sued for millions of dollars.
"For 50 years after someone is deceased, they are covered by HIPAA," said Laskin.
Laskin said bottom line -- you should treat your medical information like you would your financial information.
"The medical records you have at home, lock them up. If you have them on a computer, secure them down with passwords and encryption," said Laskin.
Laskin added that most HIPAA breaches happen by physical theft.