Athletic department gears up for health insurance act

by Joe Arnold
Staff Writer

••Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Friday’s stories examine how Ohio’s departments and agencies will handle the federal mandate.••

When an arachnoid cyst sidelined Ohio running back Chad Brinker last season, team officials and the Ohio athletic department issued written statements announcing Brinker’s injury, the course of action to be taken and his prognosis for the season.

Now, nearly a year later, a piece of federal legislation might prohibit statements like the one the athletic department made last October.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act— signed into law in 1996 — was designed to protect the privacy rights of medical care recipients. According to the act, patients are given exclusive rights to who has access to their medical records. Employees switching insurance providers are no longer required to notify their new insurance companies of pre-existing conditions. The deadline for compliance is April 14, 2003.

The act states that because athletes receive medical care from team trainers and physicians, they are no different than firefighters or receptionists in terms of medical records confidentiality.

The Ohio athletic department, like many other university departments, is in a preliminary planning stage to come into compliance with the law, Director of Athletics Tom Boeh said.

“I’m sure we’ll be checking with other institutions throughout the Mid-American Conference and other sister institutions throughout the state,” he said. “I suspect that the interpretation of this rule will likely go by state just because the attorney generals will help those interpretations.”

'"The Knoxville News Sentinel" reported on July 21 that injury information could be severely limited. The restrictions, which rely on written waivers signed by athletes, could prohibit trainers and doctors from even indicating which body part is injured. Athletes could cite confidentiality and possibly prevent coaches from learning about the nature of their injuries.

On Aug. 8, Tennessee was the first Division I-A school to announce changes to its injury-reporting procedures when it announced that injuries would be identified only by body part. The school continues to use the “out,” “questionable” and “probable” labels in releasing playing status. Results of diagnostic tests such as MRIs and CT scans would be disclosed upon the athlete’s request.

Despite the predictions of the ••News Sentinel•• article, Keith Webster said he does not expect injury-reporting procedures to change drastically. Webster chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee for the National Athletic Trainers Association. He is also the administrative head of athletic training at Kentucky.

“We’ve always had to deal with confidentiality, authorization and consent,” he said. “This just gives us an opportunity to examine existing policies. It shouldn’t lead to a total upheaval of policy.”

“Athletic trainers are still charged to protect the health of athletes. You have to be able to dictate the status of play, but how specific is up to the athlete.”

Ohio athletes currently sign a blanket waiver at the beginning of each season that provides trainers and team physicians with the discretion to release pertinent injury information, Director of Athletic Training John Bowman said.

Bowman said he expects the HIPAA-related changes made by some schools around the country to influence undetermined policies at other schools — Ohio included.

“Most athletic departments and most universities don’t like to make decisions that put them on an island,” he said. “They look at sister institutions and look at things that make them feel comfortable. I would tend to think that schools make decisions based on themselves, but a lot of schools will consider what other schools are doing.”

Bowman, who meets daily with head football coach Brian Knorr during the fall, said he has mixed feelings about the act. Among the potential negatives is the potential paperwork associated with reporting.

“This rule really affects that coach’s report, that we have to get the player’s permission every time we want to give that information to a coach,” he said. “That’s a red-tape nightmare for me.”

A potential change to Ohio’s current policy also could open the program to gambling problems, Bowman said.

“By releasing (injury) information, you cut the knees out from under that bad element, that wants to get that information from a student trainer or a student manager or who is spying around (at practice) to see who’s on crutches,” he said. “The reason why we’ve always had press conferences and always had injury reports is to protect the athletes. Sometimes releasing that information can help provide protection to keep that bad element out.”