Claire O’Brien

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161 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 7 Aug

Claire O’Brien’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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AHLA's Speaking of Health Law · What Health Care Providers Should Know When Responding to Subpoenas or Other Legal Demands · 7 Aug 2026 podcast

That's a common misconception.

Uh but there still could be an opportunity for patient initiated litigation under these state laws that we've been talking about.

So for example, the Tennessee Patients Privacy Protection Act prohibits the disclosure of certain identifying information.

of a patient except in certain circumstances.

So kind of like HIPAA, but it's a state law and that law creates an additional layer of legal risk for providers in that state and has been used as the basis for private litigation in the past.

So the bottom line is every subpoena and legal demand needs to be considered in its specific context.

And you know, another important consideration is government enforcement.

So Terry, are these issues mostly theoretical or are regulators actually pursuing enforcement actions based on improper disclosures?

And all those numbers, which you know can be enormous, they still don't even account for the attorney's fees that you presumably uh incur when you're, you know, seeking counsel as you navigate an improper disclosure.

Um, and then just the operational impact as your staff is focusing on dealing with that issue.

And so um it's really much better to avoid the situation in the first place than try to try and clean it up after the fact.

Yeah, so matters have definitely been in the news recently.

And even yesterday, so June twenty fourth, for those who might be listening to this podcast at a later date, uh, a federal judge in New York issued a TRO prohibiting the Department of Justice from obtaining sensitive health information through certain subpoenas.

Uh, and the court expressed concern about the breadth of those subpoenas, which were seeking identifying information and medical records for minor patients who had received gender affirming care at New York.

Hospitals.

And this is just the latest development in an ongoing story.

Last year, DOJ and several state attorneys general issued subpoenas to providers of gender affirming care across the country, demanding a huge amount of information, including patient names, dates of birth, social security addresses, home or social security numbers, and home addresses.

And those subpoenas, it's interesting because instead of responding automatically, these providers have done exactly

what we're talking about here today, which is thought, mm, maybe this isn't quite right.

And they've been challenging the subpoenas um across the country with varying degrees of success.

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