Montana Title 50. Health and Safety § 50-16-502. Legislative findings

(1) health care information is personal and sensitive information that if improperly used or released may do significant harm to a patient's interests in privacy and health care or other interests;

(2) patients need access to their own health care information as a matter of fairness, to enable them to make informed decisions about their health care and to correct inaccurate or incomplete information about themselves;

(3) in order to retain the full trust and confidence of patients, health care providers have an interest in ensuring that health care information is not improperly disclosed and in having clear and certain rules for the disclosure of health care information;

(4) persons other than health care providers obtain, use, and disclose health record information in many different contexts and for many different purposes. It is the public policy of this state that a patient's interest in the proper use and disclosure of the patient's health care information survives even when the information is held by persons other than health care providers.

(5) the movement of patients and their health care information across state lines, access to and exchange of health care information from automated data banks, and the emergence of multistate health care providers creates a compelling need for uniform law, rules, and procedures governing the use and disclosure of health care information.

(6) the enactment of federal health care privacy legislation and the adoption of rules pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), 42 U.S.C. 1320d, et seq., require health care providers subject to that legislation to provide significant privacy protection for health care information and the provisions of this part are no longer necessary for those health care providers; and

(7) because the provisions of HIPAA do not apply to some health care providers, it is important that these health care providers continue to adhere to this part.