Dr. Sharon Mitchell has a plea to adult video producers and webmasters: "Stop calling!"
"I've gotten calls and emails from 16 companies," Mitchell said. "I've been out for three weeks, and I've got 5,000 e-mails to answer, and half of them are, like, 'You've got to give us IDs for these people.'"
It's a side effect of the 2257 fever that's sweeping the industry. Everyone wants to try to be in compliance with the updated record-keeping and labeling regulations that go into effect on June 23, and apparently some have figured that the best way to solve their missing performer ID problems wholesale is to dump the problem on AIM – and specifically, Mitchell herself.
"Look, the law's not for medical people; it's for pornographers. It has nothing to do with me," she responded. "I can give them a copy of a patient ID number, but that is as far as I can go."
It's not that Mitchell is being obstructionist; it's the law.
"It's all about HIPAA," she explained. "I forget the exact acronym. It's the basic privacy code that says that each patient has some relevant right to privacy."
What Mitchell is talking about is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, whose main purpose is to allow people changing jobs to maintain their health insurance coverage during the changeover, or even if they're out of work for some period of time. But part of that law contains privacy provisions that could get Mitchell and AIM in real trouble if they're violated.
"Every health care provider, regardless of size, who electronically transmits health information in connection with certain transactions, is a covered entity," states a summary of the law that can be downloaded from the Health and Human Services website.
"The Privacy Rule protects all 'individually identifiable health information' held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral," the summary continues.
There are certain instances when the health care provider may be required or permitted to make disclosures, such as in response to a subpoena or court order, or with the permission of the patient, or for research. But disclosure to help adult production companies comply with 18 USC 2257 isn't one of them, and such permission isn't part of AIM's standard HIV-status disclosure agreement.
"It doesn't give me a release for their real name or address or picture," Mitchell explained. "I can put their stage name up on a quarantine list; not a real name. That's pretty much all I can do. The closest thing that we can do, that we've always been doing, is to release the patient ID number, which is the picture ID number of that person."
A performer's AIM ID number is derived from the picture identification document he or she presents when being tested, and since that identification document then forms part of the performer's medical record, AIM can't reveal that without suffering major penalties.
"If I could do it, I would, but I can't," Mitchell summarized. "It's illegal."
In fact, the HIPAA summary reflects both civil and criminal penalties for unauthorized disclosure, including a minimum of up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine per incident.
So, Mitchell pleads, stop calling and emailing to request disclosure of her patients' picture IDs. She can't do it. It's that simple.
