{"id":2464,"date":"2019-04-11T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=2464"},"modified":"2019-04-11T09:00:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T14:00:22","slug":"cook-county-illinois-revised-hipaa-qualified-protective-order-signals-new-responsibility-for-injury-attorneys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=2464","title":{"rendered":"Cook County, Illinois Revised HIPAA Qualified Protective Order Signals New Responsibility for Injury Attorneys"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah B. Galeli
\nAssociate Editor
\nLoyola University Chicago School of Law, J.D. 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

Cook County General Administrative Order 18-1 pertains to the Standard HIPAA Qualified Protective Orders (QPO) that will be permitted in Cook County. These orders will only be allowed for cases that are in litigation where the Plaintiff and\u00a0<\/em>Plaintiff\u2019s counsel authorize disclosure of a litigants\u2019 protected health information (PHI). It also requires all entities who received PHI to either return the documents to the Plaintiff or destroy them at the end of the case. These changes mean that Plaintiff\u2019s attorneys will see a change in the handling of Plaintiff\u2019s medical records and other documents covered under the QPO containing PHI.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cook County General Administrative Order 18-1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cook County General Administrative Order 18-1<\/a> replaced Orders 12-1 and 17-4<\/a> as the new Standard HIPAA Qualified Protective Order in Cook County, Illinois. As the order states, the sample QPO provided in the Administrative Order is the only order that will be accepted by Cook County judges after October 2018. These orders are used in litigation when a Plaintiff alleges an injury resulted from that the Defendant\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

Until December 2017 when Cook County General Administrative Order 17-4 was entered, Defendants could utilize protective orders to obtain a Plaintiff\u2019s PHI without the Plaintiff\u2019s consent because the Plaintiff put their medical injuries at issue by filing an action. However, after Plaintiff\u2019s counsel objected to their client\u2019s PHI in medical records being retained for that length of time in Shull v. Ellis<\/em>, the Cook County Circuit Court was left to balance Plaintiffs\u2019 right to privacy and Defendant-insurer\u2019s requirements under Illinois Insurance Code (IIC)<\/a> to \u201cretain nearly every type of document in their possession\u201d for seven years. The result was a new QPO more in line with the language in HIPAA, with the addition of the Plaintiff\u2019s signed consent and Plaintiff\u2019s counsel\u2019s signed consent.<\/p>\n

The Compliance Measures<\/strong><\/p>\n

While this Administrative Order only applies to injury litigation in Cook County, the Cook County Circuit Court is well known for the number of injury litigation cases filed by Plaintiffs. Due to the sheer number of active injury cases in Cook County, providers throughout Cook and likely much of the state, will receive new the QPO throughout the coming years.<\/p>\n

The good news is, the HIPAA language of any standard order put in place after October 2018 shouldn\u2019t create complications for medical providers and Defendant\u2019s counsel will change out their QPO, get the required signatures, and file as usual. However, many plaintiff\u2019s attorneys in Cook County, Illinois, or representing clients with injury cases in Cook County should be aware of the duty they face under the new QPO. Not only do plaintiff\u2019s attorneys have the duty to ensure their client is informed as to the release of their PHI under a QPO, but they now have a duty to ensure that their client\u2019s PHI released under a QPO is either destroyed or returned per paragraph five of the QPO.<\/p>\n

Paragraph five states, that at the conclusion of the lawsuit, anyone possessing documents containing PHI shall either agree to return the documents to the Plaintiff or Plaintiff\u2019s counsel or destroy the documents. The two following paragraphs also require that PHI is only allowed to be requested or obtained as part of the discovery process involving a lawsuit and that documents containing PHI are not allowed to be filed with the Clerk of Circuit Court. All of these measures protect the Plaintiff\u2019s PHI requested under a QPO, but they require new steps Plaintiff\u2019s attorneys must comply with the QPO.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois has put into effect a new QPO in an effort to protect injured Plaintiff\u2019s right to privacy of their PHI under HIPAA. The conclusion of an injury case in Cook County may mean additional work for Plaintiff\u2019s attorneys if a QPO was utilized to obtain their client\u2019s medical records or any other document containing PHI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cook County General Administrative Order 18-1 pertains to the Standard HIPAA Qualified Protective Orders (QPO) that will be permitted in Cook County. These orders will only be allowed for cases that are in litigation where the Plaintiff and Plaintiff\u2019s counsel authorize disclosure of a litigants\u2019 protected health information (PHI). It also requires all entities who received PHI to either return the documents to the Plaintiff or destroy them at the end of the case. These changes mean that Plaintiff\u2019s attorneys will see a change in the handling of Plaintiff\u2019s medical records and other documents covered under the QPO containing PHI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[129,468,507,571,1032,1095,1622,1668],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hipaa-health-information","tag-administrative-order","tag-compliance","tag-cook-county","tag-data-privacy","tag-hipaa-2","tag-illinois","tag-privacy","tag-qualified-protective-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}