LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Legal Newsline) - A former Air Force airman who told a social worker he was suicidal, drank a fifth of vodka a day and had used methamphetamines has no case against a hospital for disclosing his drug use to a superior officer, an Arkansas court ruled.
Citing an exception to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for military personnel, the Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by Brandon Barrs against the social worker and her employer, Baptist Health Medical Center.
Barr was a 13-year Air Force veteran who’d done a tour in Afghanistan when he was admitted to the Baptist ICU in January 2017. There he told the social worker he had thought about killing himself but couldn’t find the key to his shotgun case. He also said he had taken meth seven or eight hours before and used alcohol to self-medicate.
Barrs requested a transfer to University Behavioral Health in Denton, Texas, for further inpatient treatment. Since that involved leaving the state, he needed approval by a superior officer. When the social worker called for approval, the officer said she believed Barrs had been admitted for kidney failure. The social worker explained that his methamphetamine use could explain his kidney readings, after which the officer said “the big takeaway from this was this guy had tested positive for drugs, and I needed to make some phone calls.”
After a few days at Baptist, Barrs transferred to UBH, where he stayed for about a month. A few days after discharge a lieutenant colonel filed a charge sheet accusing Barrs of using meth in January 2017. The charge was withdrawn after Barrs entered an alcohol and drug abuse program at the air base in Little Rock. The Air Force moved to discipline Barrs again when he failed to cooperate in the treatment program, but agreed to grant him an honorable discharge if he waived his right to a hearing, which Barrs accepted.
Barrs then sued the social worker and Baptist for violating his rights under HIPAA and causing him to lose his job and lifetime veterans’ healthcare benefits. The trial court dismissed his case and the appeals court affirmed in an April 12 decision.
The Military Command Exception to HIPAA allows patient information to be disclosed “for activities deemed necessary by appropriate military command authorities to assure the proper execution of the military mission,” the appeals court ruled. Medical personnel also can disclose protected health information under court order.
The social worker “was allowed—with or without consent from Barrs—to disclose to Barrs’s superior officer healthcare information relating to `mental health and/or substance misuse conditions or related circumstances’ when the condition involves harm to self or harm to the mission or the provider believes that the condition interferes with military duties,” the court concluded. “The day that Barrs was admitted to the ER, he was suicidal, suffered from mental-health issues related to his experiences in Afghanistan, and was self-medicating with alcohol and methamphetamine.”