The Association's March on Washington

Thursday, June 15, was a remarkable day for our Association. On that day, for the first time, we co-sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). The well-attended briefing commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 1996 Supreme Court decision in Jaffee v. Redmond. This decision is of critical and continuing importance to us because it legally established, in the highest court in the land, that there is a therapist-patient privilege. This “privilege” made clear that the privacy of the relationship between therapist and patient is protected in the same manner as are communications with a lawyer or priest.

The Association was closely involved in the Jaffee v. Redmond case by submitting an amicus brief, which was cited in the decision. The central figure in the case was a quietly heroic social worker, Karen Beyer, who refused to turn over records without her patient's consent. In 2000, I was pleased to present Beyer with a Special Presidential Award on behalf of our Association. She responded with moving and heartfelt comments about her experience that were reported in full in TAP (number 60, 2000).

Fortunately, Beyer was able to join us at our Breakfast on Capitol Hill. Also on the panel was Harold Eist, the psychiatrist who defended the privacy of his patients' mental health records in litigation with the Board of Registration in Maryland. Eist spoke eloquently about the plight of the lone practitioner with limited resources facing unrelenting harassment from a governmental bureaucracy. Eist reported that in spite of three court victories and a positive peer review, the board is continuing its persecution, or “witch hunt,” as he termed it. He pointed out that professional boards in any state can, have, and will behave the same way if allowed to operate without oversight. Taking his warning seriously, our Association has also participated in his case with an amicus brief.

As one of the speakers, I summarized APsaA's work over many years on the right to health information privacy. Deborah Peel described the experience of her Patient Privacy Rights organization in securing the support for health privacy from a politically diverse list of consumer groups. Because of her own personal dynamism, her many political contacts, and the fact that she represents consumer (rather than professional) groups, Peel has been especially effective in lobbying congressional members to support patient privacy. She has also succeeded in creating wide media coverage on the issue.

Jim Pyles, of the health law firm Powers, Pyles, Sutter and Verville, spoke about his legislative and legal efforts on behalf of our Association. By a sheer stroke of good fortune, several of the electronic medical record (EMR) bills we have been concerned about were being discussed (marked up) that morning following our breakfast. This concatenation of events enabled us to highlight the potential threat to health privacy and to the Jaffe privilege itself posed by the health information technology (IT) bills, on the very morning that the two bills were being considered by the committee.

Congressmen Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), and possibly Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), had agreed to participate in the panel, but were unable to do so because of the hearings. However, many APsaA members who attended the briefing attended the Energy and Commerce Committee meeting at the express invitation of Markey.

APsaA has been closely involved in the debate over these bills, has helped obtain changes in the bills that are more privacy protective, and has worked with members of Congress to formulate privacy amendments that appear to have achieved bipartisan support. See the “Politics and Public Policy” article [page 37] for a summary of the heated debate over those amendments in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

All things considered, it was a good day for privacy, and for the American Psychoanalytic Association.