Physicians react: Doctors worry about patients reading their clinical notes
Patients will soon be able to read the notes that physicians make during an episode of care, as well as information about diagnostic testing and imaging results, tests for STDs, fetal ultrasounds, and cancer biopsies. This open access is raising concerns among physicians.
As part of the 21st Century Cures Act, patients have the right to see their medical notes. Known as Open Notes, the policy will go into effect on April 5, 2021. The Department of Health & Human Services recently changed the original start date, which was to be Nov. 2, 2020.
The mandate has some physicians worrying about potential legal risks and possible violation of doctor-patient confidentiality. When asked to share their views on the new Open Notes mandate, many physicians expressed their concerns but also cited some of the positive effects that could come from this.
Potentially more legal woes for physicians?
A key concern raised by one physician commenter is that patients could misunderstand legitimate medical terminology or even put a physician in legal crosshairs. For example, a medical term such as “spontaneous abortion” could be misconstrued by patients. A physician might write notes with the idea that a patient is reading them and thus might alter those notes in a way that creates legal trouble.
“This layers another level of censorship and legal liability onto physicians, who in attempting to be [politically correct], may omit critical information or have to use euphemisms in order to avoid conflict,” one physician said.
She also questioned whether notes might now have to be run through legal counsel before being posted to avoid potential liability.
Another doctor questioned how physicians would be able to document patients suspected of faking injuries for pain medication, for example. Could such documentation lead to lawsuits for the doctor?
As one physician noted, some patients “are drug seekers. Some refuse to aid in their own care. Some are malingerers. Not documenting that is bad medicine.”
The possibility of violating doctor-patient confidentiality laws, particularly for teenagers, could be another negative effect of Open Notes, said one physician.
“Won’t this violate the statutes that teenagers have the right to confidential evaluations?” the commenter mused. “If charts are to be immediately available, then STDs and pregnancies they weren’t ready to talk about will now be suddenly known by their parents.”
One doctor has already faced this issue. “I already ran into this problem once,” he noted. “Now I warn those on their parents’ insurance before I start the visit. I have literally had a patient state, ‘well then we are done,’ and leave without being seen due to it.”
Another physician questioned the possibility of having to write notes differently than they do now, especially if the patients have lower reading comprehension abilities.
One physician who uses Open Notes said he receives patient requests for changes that have little to do with the actual diagnosis and relate to ancillary issues. He highlighted patients who “don’t want psych diagnosis in their chart or are concerned a diagnosis will raise their insurance premium, so they ask me to delete it.”
