Confidentiality and protection are critical in providing of all-inclusive primary care for adolescent patients. Usually, this protection differs with the state laws as well as the limitation of the electronic health record (EHR) documentation and billing operations of individual physician practices. In this case, it is crucial for practitioners to increase their knowledge on confidentiality protections for their adolescent patients and understand their role in preventing the possible confidentiality breaches. As minors grow older and reach the teen age, they get the right for confidentiality hence the need for private consultations and examinations.
In the United States, teens aged 16 years and above have the right for medical report protection and confidentiality. Therefore, their full consent is needed whenever the practitioner need to share the information with a third party including parents. However, the law enumerated the various information categories that can be kept from parents ( Wadman et al., 2014) . Although they differ with states, majority of the information include sexuality activity. Even majority of teens are sexually active, they are always not comfortable allowing their parents know it. Another category is in regard to drug and alcohol use.
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Usually, no parent is willing to hear and learn that their children are using alcohol and other drugs. However, it is the responsibility of the physician to learn about the drugs and advise them accordingly to ensure that there is no physical danger ( Parsapoor et al., 2014) . Furthermore, only a few teens are likely to admit their use of drugs before their parents. The last category of information that should be confidential between teens and professionals is mental health issues. Usually, teens with depression and anxiety issues may not feel comfortable discussing the matter with parents. According to Ott (2014), about 45% of all patients suffering from depression are not willing to seek medical assistance if they are required to notify their parents.
Technically, there are specific times when practitioners are allowed to breach the teen’s confidentiality and it becomes their duty to inform the parents. These instances include when the teenagers test positive for HIV/AIDS, during an abortion and when the teenagers are suffering from severe mental issues.
In regard to Philips case, the responsibility and obligation of the practitioner towards the security and confidentiality of the information is dependent on the state they are in. In case they are in states that allow for parental consent before conducting medical practices, the doctor have the responsibility of informing the parent on Phillips drug and substance abuse report. This implies that despite Phillips request for the parents to be excluded, the parental consent is still needed for the practitioner to continue with treatment. Otherwise, this could be termed as negligence and the parents can sue the doctor for breaching their confidentiality right on their son’s health.
On the other hand, if Phillips is from the states that allows teenagers aged 16 and above to use their signatures without that of the parents, the practitioner has the obligation to ensure that the patient’s information remain confidential and protected from third parties. Informing parents of the matter would be considered a breach of contract and Phillip can sue the doctor for the misconduct.
In conclusion, minors are considered to have no confidentiality rights thus cannot make decisions on what they what. In this case, parents are allowed to make decision on their behalf. However, in many of the American states, teens aged 16 years and above have the confidentiality right and can seek medical services without the consent of their parents. In some instances such as abortion, HIV/AIDS infection, and development of severe mental issues, practitioners have the obligation of informing the parents. Despite their obligation of ensuring security and confidentiality, it is still the responsibility of healthcare practitioners to protect them from any form of physical harm.
References
Ott, M. A. (2014). Teen pregnancy and Confidentiality. https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/7846/Ott_2015_teen.pdf?sequence=1
Parsapoor, A., Parsapoor, M. B., Rezaei, N., & Asghari, F. (2014). Autonomy of children and adolescents in consent to treatment: ethical, jurisprudential and legal considerations. Iranian journal of pediatrics , 24 (3), 241.
Wadman, R., Thul, D., Elliott, A. S., Kennedy, A. P., Mitchell, I., & Pinzon, J. L. (2014). Adolescent confidentiality: Understanding and practices of health care providers. Paediatrics & child health , 19 (2), e11-e14.
