Why Medical Privacy Gets Special Protection
Health information is treated as especially sensitive because it relates to one's body and mind, encourages candor with doctors, and protects against discrimination by employers and insurers. Yet medical data is still used extensively for payment, treatment, research, and quality evaluation.
Strict privacy laws exist for health care for three core reasons: medical information concerns the inner workings of one's body or mind; patients are more candid with doctors when assured embarrassing facts stay private; and protections shield people from unequal treatment by employers and insurers (for example over birth control use, abortion, an STD, substance abuse treatment, psychiatric care, or genetic risk).
Despite strict laws, medical data is used heavily for accurate payment, treatment coordination across locations, research (sometimes Deidentified information), and evaluating provider quality. Changing technology like Telemedicine reshapes both how care is delivered and how data is collected.