In Washington state must a doctor report things that happened in the past? Are Washington state's mandated reporting requirements triggered if a doctor discovers that their adult patient had been abused in the past? What if there are no longer any 'protected populations' at risk (no children, no vulnerable adults/elderly,...)? What if the patient talks exclusively in hypothetical terms?
RCW Chapter 26.44 covers abuse of children, and RCW 26.44.030 1(a) states the duty to report: the reporter "has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect" – the law doesn't say "a child is currently suffering abuse", it say "has suffered". But then: subsection (2) says: The reporting requirement of subsection (1) of this section does not apply to the discovery of abuse or neglect that occurred during childhood if it is discovered after the child has become an adult. However, if there is reasonable cause to believe other children are or may be at risk of abuse or neglect by the accused, the reporting requirement of subsection (1) of this section does apply. So, no, unless it is reasonable to believe that the abuse is ongoing, in which case, yes. It's not really possible to judge the status of a "hypothetical", because some hypotheticals are hypotheticals, and others are real, so it would depend on the totality of evidence that would support that conclusion.
The rule applies to &quot;A covered entity or business associate&quot;, who may not &quot;use or disclose protected health information&quot; except as permitted. The set of covered entities and business associates is pretty large, and certainly covers nurses, also secretaries working for the hospital or insurance company. It is not restricted to the doctor-patient relationship. However, the restriction is not absolute: a patient can consent to the disclosure of such information: but, the consent must be written. This raises an interpretive challenge, in case patient A reveals a medical fact to a friend B who happens to be a medical professional. Person B probably is a &quot;covered entity&quot;, since they are undoubtedly A health care provider who transmits any health information in electronic form in connection with a transaction covered by this subchapter. The information also is &quot;protected&quot;: Protected health information means individually identifiable health information: (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this definition, that is: (i) Transmitted by electronic media; (ii) Maintained in electronic media; or (iii) Transmitted or maintained in any other form or medium. (2) Protected health information excludes individually identifiable health information: (i) In education records covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 1232g; (ii) In records described at 20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4)(B)(iv); (iii) In employment records held by a covered entity in its role as employer; and (iv) Regarding a person who has been deceased for more than 50 years. Para 5 on prohibited uses and disclosures explicitly lists the prohibited disclosures (genetic information for insurance underwriting, sale of PHI), so idle gossip is not explicitly prohibited. It is also not explicitly allowed. But again, the regulation says: may not use or disclose protected health information, except as permitted or required by this subpart Nothing in the rules limits the obligation of a &quot;covered entity&quot;, in terms of how they came to be in possession of PHI. Given the definition of &quot;covered entity&quot;, the fact of being a covered entity is a property does not depend on obtaining information electronically. So without written consent, B who is a covered entity cannot gossip about A's medical status.
Chain of custody and testimony in this regard. Say there is a murder victim, with DNA of the suspect under the fingernails and a knife with the suspect's bloody fingerprints stuck in the chest. There would be testimony what happened to the knife. If a paramedic removed it to attempt first aid, the paramedic would testify. So would the officer who bagged it, and the forensic analyst who took the fingerprints. A pathologist would testify if the knife was consistent with the stab wound (a careful pathologist could never swear that the knife was the cause of death, just that it matches). The pathologist would also testify how DNA was collected under the fingernails, and how it was sent to the lab. The defense may claim that the suspect also tried first aid, or that a corrupt cop forced the suspect to hold the knife. The court or jury then draw their conclusions from this and other testimony. Same here. A lifelike picture found on the web proves nothing. A witness who takes the stand to testify that he or she took a certain picture would be more credible. So would a forensic officer who testifies how she or he removed the data from a surveillance camera, checked for common signs of tampering, and then signed a copy of the data with a private key. (The signing shows no third-party tampering after collection, it is not evidence of integrity before that.) Years ago, in germany, there was the case of a bank robber who claimed that a fleeing suspect had handed him a bag of money in the forest and then vanished. &quot;Prove it wasn't so,&quot; he demanded. &quot;You can't. So there is reasonable doubt.&quot; Well, the court found that the statement merely created unreasonable doubt, and the sentence was upheld on appeal.
There aren't any specific laws or regulations about medical charges. Instead, this is a matter of general contract law, where you have to agree. You have to consent to be treated, and a signature is taken to be evidence of consent. The law does not say that they have to ask permission for absolutely everything they do, the action just as to be in accordance with an accepted standard of medical practice among members of the medical profession with similar training and experience in the same or similar medical community as that of the person treating, examining, or operating on the patient for whom the consent is obtained This law insulates doctors from getting sued. In a situation where treatment is provided against a patient's instructions, you may have a cause of action for e.g. battery. In general, a doctor can't poke you, draw blood, make "offensive contact" etc. without consent, and consenting to one procedure does not "open the floodgates" of consent for any othre procedure. Of course, if the procedure was not performed, you obviously are not liable for the cost (and they are not liable for a non-occurring battery). This may in fact constitute gross negligence. During trial, the primary issue is likely to be whether there is proof that the procedure was expressly rejected. The doctor would probably provide the consent form, and that form may or may not indicate that the test would be conducted. It would not be surprising if the patient never saw an actual form and instead just electro-signed, having been told that this is authorization to treat. Corroborating witnesses would be helpful. From a practical perspective, especially if the billing department is being recalcitrant, this is probably a matter best handled by an attorney who would start with a formal letter summarizing the consequences of unauthorized medical treatment.
united-states Is a personal text (like a diary), submitted without the consent of the author, admissible evidence? Usually, it is admissible evidence. There is no legal right to keep your diary private. Production of a diary may be compelled by subpoena and admitted into evidence subject only to general considerations regarding whether particular entries in the diary are inadmissible for some other reason (e.g. lack of relevance, they recite the contents of an otherwise privileged discussion, they contain hearsay, they recite the terms of a settlement offer, the recite inadmissible prior act evidence, etc.). If the diary revealed information that could place the diarist at risk of criminal prosecution, the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination could arguably be claimed even in a civil case, but at the risk of an adverse inference to be drawn from that decision in civil matters. I haven't ever seen how that issue is resolved legally.
The courts of Washington will not apply the law of Tennessee in an action somehow involving something about Tennessee, they will apply the laws of Washington. If neither end of the conversation is in an all-party state, no party has standing to sue under the laws of some other state. If a person in Idaho calls a person in Oregon and the call is routed through Washington state, neither party can sue under Washington law. In all 50 states, there is an &quot;exception&quot; to the consent requirement when the &quot;interception&quot; is due to routing / switching, otherwise it would be illegal to call from house to house if you don't have a single wire between the houses (never the case). No state has a law that imposes two-party state law in calls that pass through a two-party state. The federal wiretapping law say you may not intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communications without consent, then sets up the definitions to encode the exceptions. For example, &quot;aural transfer&quot; is a transfer containing the human voice at any point between and including the point of origin and the point of reception (anticipating the need for connections), and &quot;intercept&quot; means &quot;acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device&quot; (a hearing aid is a device). But then &quot;electronic, mechanical, or other device&quot; is further defined to exclude a hearing aid, or also they exclude any telephone or telegraph instrument, equipment or facility, or any component thereof, (i) furnished to the subscriber or user by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business or furnished by such subscriber or user for connection to the facilities of such service and used in the ordinary course of its business; or (ii) being used by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business, or by an investigative or law enforcement officer in the ordinary course of his duties which is a good thing since the telephone is a device, and the switching system is a system used to make a phone call possible, but it intercepts under the ordinary meaning of intercept. Intercept has a specific, narrow meaning. The law of Florida is very similar
Its worth actually reading through the law again - they're meant for different categories of drugs - and its worth looking up the relevant laws as a whole. You can't cherrypick which law you charge them under in this case. It depends on what the suspect has in posession, and if you have more serious charges, they're probably going to be preferred unless the prosecution decides to throw the entire library at the suspect and charge them with everything they can, or a larger subset. A quick search on the internet - which shouldn't be taken as legal advice, brings up this link. Category 1 drugs are addictive and seen as therapeutically useless - you shouldn't have any realistic reason to have quantities of it in your posession. Category 3 is drugs with therapeutic use - stuff like codine. You could get a prescription for that, but there's potential for abuse. They're aimed at different classes of drugs - and the confusion is over a misinterpretation of what the law is about. As an aside, this is why you need to usually read more than just a specific statute or law to get what its about.
Different kinds of court records are subject to different rules, but generally speaking, the public has a right to access the complaint in a civil case, derived from both the First Amendment and common law. Under common law, the Court should only block public access if it determines that some interest in secrecy outweighs the interests promoted by the general policy of openness, which include the promotion of actual fairness and the appearance of fairness, community therapeutic value, and facilitating news coverage of the case. Even if you can get the records sealed under the common law test, you still need to pass the First Amendment test, which asks whether there is a compelling governmental interest in limiting access to the record and whether sealing it is the least restrictive way of achieving that interest. The answer to both questions is usually no. In applying those tests, HIPAA neither requires nor permits courts to make exceptions to the public's right to access court records. Its privacy rules only govern protected health information in the possession of medical providers, insurers, etc. This means that filing a medical malpractice case will almost certainly result in the facts underlying that case becoming part of the public record. One could petition the court to seal portions of the record if they were particularly sensitive, but the court is basically required to do whatever it can to avoid granting that motion.