Texas doctor sues, claiming new HIPAA rule curbs child abuse reporting

A new rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, will prevent medical professionals from making child abuse reports, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Monday. The Biden Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services added reproductive healthcare, including information about abortions and transgender procedures, to information legally protected under HIPAA.

Texas law requires doctors to report suspected abuse to state officials but Biden’s new rule may undermine the law’s efficacy, the lawsuit noted. Dr. Carmen Purl runs a clinic in northwest Texas and filed a federal lawsuit on Monday to challenge the rule before it takes full effect in December. When treating a pregnant woman, both mother and child are patients and elective abortion harms both, Purl’s lawsuit alleged. Medical interventions attempting to change one’s biological sex are harmful to a patient’s physical and mental health, the complaint continued. The new 2024 rule could prevent Purl from reporting abuse indicators like minors seeking an abortion or contracting a sexually transmitted disease. The new rule would also bar Purl from alerting authorities of minors receiving illegal transgender procedures, like sex-change surgeries or cross-sex hormones.

The Biden administration is weaponizing privacy laws to undermine state laws protecting mothers and children from abortion, sterilizing procedures, and life-altering surgeries, said Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake at Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal non-profit representing Purl. The U.S. Supreme Court resoundingly affirmed that states, not bureaucrats, should set abortion policy, she added.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a similar federal lawsuit accusing the federal government of undermining state law with the HIPAA change. The new rule would illegally restrict state law enforcement investigations that implicate medical procedures, Paxton’s office said in a September release.

This new rule actively undermines Congress’ provisions in HIPAA designed to preserve state authority when health information is needed during investigations, Paxton said in the release. The federal government is attempting to undermine Texas’s law and Paxton would not allow that to happen under his administration, the release stated.

Did the administration speak to why it felt the rule change was necessary? Fear of doctors sharing medical information can stop women from seeking doctors or picking up prescriptions, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said when the new rule first came out in April. The Biden administration aims to strengthen protections for people seeking reproductive medicine no matter where they are, he added.