Buried deep in a 412-page document that will be published Wednesday in the Federal Register are a couple of paragraphs that could provide enormous relief to major sports leagues. Some players and coaches may not be so pleased, however.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued final rules on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which was designed to increase the privacy rights of patients.
Teams in the major sports feared that if the law had been strictly interpreted, they would have faced a huge mess in handling their players’ medical information.
But the final rules appear to provide wriggle room — if not outright exclusion — for professional sports teams, which are mentioned on Pages 50 and 51 of the document. ”Professional sports teams are unlikely to be covered entities” under the law, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. ”Even if a sports team were to be a covered entity, employment records of a covered entity are not covered by this rule.”
The Department of Health and Human Services responded to a comment written by Jim Schuster, a lawyer who had been working on behalf of the Cincinnati Bengals for the firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, based in Cincinnati.
Schuster, who recently took a job at the Council for Regulatory Compliance, noted that if the law had been strictly applied, then pro teams would have been required to create an entire bureaucracy to cope; a compliance officer would have had to be hired.
Professional sports teams have ”saved literally millions of dollars” because of the new language of the rules, he said.
A strict interpretation would have also allowed players, coaches, managers and other executives to withhold medical information from reporters.
Many coaches believe in restricting the flow of medical information, and some players do not like others to know about their physical status because it may affect their leverage in contract talk.
Furthermore, the document states, ”nothing in this rule prevents an employer, such as a professional sports team, from making an employee’s agreement to disclose health records a condition of employment.”
In other words, professional teams could put in their contracts specific language regarding the release of medical information. It appears that the only current reference to the release of medical information is in the Major League Baseball contract, which addresses the transfer of records when a player is being considered in a trade.
The document by the Department of Health and Human Services specified that it would disagree with any move to decrease the privacy of players: ”No class of individuals should be singled out for reduced privacy protections.”
Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the National Football League, said, ”Our attorneys are reviewing the document, and we’re optimistic that the department recognizes that sports leagues are unique.”
N.F.L. officials fretted about the possibility that they would not be able to issue injury reports. Teams were worried about whether trainers and doctors would have to obtain written permission from players to discuss medical diagnoses with coaches and managers, and whether players could use the privacy rules as leverage in trade talks.
