When Dak Prescott was asked about his vaccination status back in July, he responded with, “I don’t think that’s exactly important. I think that’s HIPAA.”
Two-time NASCAR Cup Champion Kyle Busch had this to say in August: “I look at all of that stuff as very personal, very choice-driven and nobody needs to know what people’s choices are. But now everybody’s asking for vaccination status cards and everything and where you go, so I guess HIPAA doesn’t exist any more.”
Just this past week, Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma tweeted, then deleted, “So when did following HIPAA rules correlate to being Anti-vaccinated.”
Dwight Howard cited it too (see below).
They’re all misusing and misunderstanding what HIPAA — the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act signed into law in 1996 — is and what and whom it protects. And it’s not just athletes. Politicians are having some trouble with it, too.
So this post is here to help. I reached out to Matt Fisher, the General Counsel at a telehealth company called Carium. More importantly for our purposes, he’s an expert in HIPAA law who writes extensively on the subject (full disclosure: He’s also a friend and former college classmate of mine at Haverford College).
In this Q&A, Fisher will break down the law and what the correct usage of it actually is:
