What Is a HIPAA Authorization & Why Every Arizona Adult Needs It
By Richard Keyt and Richard C. Keyt, Arizona Estate Planning Attorneys
Richard Keyt (Rick, the father at 480-664-7478) and his son, former CPA Richard C. Keyt (Ricky at 480-664-7472), are Arizona wills, trusts and estate planning attorneys. They have 314 5-star Google reviews and 432 5-star Google, Facebook & Birdeye reviews. They want to prepare a custom estate plan for Arizona residents that protects their most valuable assets – their loved ones. Call, email, or book a free office, phone or Zoom video meeting.
No HIPAA Authorization Could Lock Your Family Out of Your Medical Care
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If you are hospitalized tomorrow — unconscious, unable to speak — your spouse, your adult children, your closest family members could be legally blocked from knowing what is happening to you and making medical decisions for you when you can’t communicate with your doctor.
Not because anyone is being cruel. Not because the hospital doesn’t care. But because of a federal law called HIPAA — and because you never signed a piece of paper called a HIPAA Authorization. If you don’t have one, the people who love you most could be standing in a hospital hallway begging for information, and legally receiving nothing and nobody can make medical decisions for you.
A federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 is a US federal law designed to protect sensitive patient health information from disclosure without consent. To learn more about your rights under HIPAA go to the Department of Health & Human Services FAQ page.
What Is HIPAA?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — HIPAA — was enacted by Congress in 1996. One of its central purposes is protecting the privacy of your medical information. Under HIPAA, your doctors, hospitals, nurses, pharmacists, and insurance companies are generally prohibited from disclosing your health information to anyone without your authorization.
That sounds reasonable. Until you are the one lying in a hospital bed and cannot speak for yourself.
The Dangerous Myth Most People Believe
Most people assume — completely incorrectly — that being married automatically gives your spouse access to your medical information. Or that being an adult child of a patient means the hospital will tell you what is going on.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
HIPAA does not recognize your marriage certificate as authorization. It does not care that you have been someone’s spouse for 40 years. It does not care that you are the person’s closest living relative. Without written authorization from the patient — signed before the crisis occurred — healthcare providers are under a legal obligation to say nothing.
Hospitals and medical providers are not being heartless. They are being legally cautious. HIPAA violations carry significant penalties. Healthcare providers have learned that it is safer to say nothing than to risk a violation.
The result? Your family could be standing at a nursing station, desperate for information about you, and the answer they receive is: “We cannot confirm or deny anything.”
Picture This — Because It Happens Every Day
Your 58-year-old husband collapses at work. An ambulance rushes him to the hospital. You race to the emergency room. Doctors are working on him behind closed doors.
You approach the nurses’ station. You explain you are his wife. You ask what is happening.
The nurse looks at you with genuine sympathy and says: “I’m so sorry. I cannot share any medical information without patient authorization.”
You don’t have a HIPAA Authorization. He never signed one. You sit in that waiting room knowing nothing. For hours.
Or consider this: Your 82-year-old mother lives alone. She suffers a stroke. A neighbor calls 911. You live across town. You call the hospital to find out her condition. They won’t tell you anything. You are her child. She is your mother. And legally, you are a stranger to her medical records.
These are not hypothetical horror stories. They happen in Arizona hospitals and medical facilities every single day.
What a HIPAA Authorization Does
A properly executed HIPAA Authorization is a legal document in which you — while you are healthy and mentally competent — give your written permission for your healthcare providers to share your medical information with specific, named individuals.
It is your instruction to the medical world that says: “If I cannot speak for myself, these are the people I trust. Talk to them. Tell them what they need to know.”
A comprehensive HIPAA Authorization can cover:
- All of your medical records, past and present
- Your current diagnosis, treatment plans, and prognosis
- Hospital admission and discharge information
- Prescription and medication records
- Mental health records (which carry even stricter privacy protections under Arizona law)
- Substance use treatment records
- Billing and insurance information
Without it, each of these categories may be sealed from the people who need to know.
But I Have a Power of Attorney — Isn’t That Enough?
Many Arizonans believe that having a Durable Financial Power of Attorney or even a Healthcare Power of Attorney automatically solves this problem.
It does not.
A Healthcare Power of Attorney — called a Health Care Directive under Arizona law — authorizes someone to make medical decisions for you when you cannot make them yourself. That is critically important, and you should absolutely have one.
But making decisions and receiving information are two different things under HIPAA. Even an agent named in a Healthcare Directive may find healthcare providers hesitant or outright unwilling to share detailed medical information without a separate, explicit HIPAA Authorization.
And your financial Power of Attorney? It gives someone authority over your bank accounts and property. It gives them no medical information rights whatsoever.
You need all three documents: a Durable Financial Power of Attorney, a Health Care Directive, and a HIPAA Authorization. Each one does something the others cannot.
What Happens Without One — The Real Risks
Let’s be specific about what is at stake:
Your family cannot coordinate your care. If your children are trying to help manage your treatment and the hospital won’t tell them your diagnosis, medications, or doctor’s recommendations, they cannot help you. They cannot ask the right questions. They cannot catch errors.
Critical decisions get delayed. Medical crises move fast. If your agent cannot get information quickly, decision-making gets delayed. Delays in medical emergencies can mean the difference between recovery and permanent injury — or death.
Your family may fracture under the stress. Nothing creates conflict among family members faster than an information vacuum during a medical crisis. One person knows something, another doesn’t. Suspicions arise. Old tensions surface. The last thing your family needs during the worst moments of your life is to be fighting over information that a single document could have freely provided.
You may be treated as a stranger. A devoted spouse of 50 years, barred from knowing their partner’s condition. An adult child who flew across the country in a panic, told to sit in a waiting room with no information. A sibling who has been their brother’s closest companion for decades — legally invisible.
This is the world without a HIPAA Authorization.
Arizona-Specific Considerations
Arizona has its own state privacy laws that layer on top of HIPAA, including particularly strict protections for mental health records under the Arizona Revised Statutes. This means that even if you have a somewhat informal arrangement with your family about sharing medical information, Arizona healthcare providers will default to maximum protection — sharing nothing — when there is any doubt.
Additionally, Arizona’s community property laws and marital rights do not override HIPAA. Your spouse has no automatic right to your medical information under federal privacy law, regardless of how Arizona law might treat marital assets.
Good News: It’s an Easy Problem to Fix
Here is the one genuinely good piece of news in all of this: a HIPAA Authorization is straightforward to obtain, and there is no excuse not to have one.
It is not complicated. It does not require a court order. It does not require a difficult conversation — though it may prompt one. It simply requires that you sit down with an experienced Arizona estate planning attorney, identify the people you trust with your most private medical information, and sign a document while you are healthy enough to do so.
The operative phrase is while you are healthy enough. Once you are unconscious in an ICU, the moment has passed. You cannot sign a HIPAA Authorization from a hospital bed if you are not competent to do so. You cannot fix this after the crisis begins.
Who Should Be Named in Your HIPAA Authorization?
This is a personal decision, but here are the most common choices among Arizona residents:
- Your spouse or domestic partner
- Your adult children — all of them, or selected ones
- A sibling, parent, or close friend who serves as a backup
- Your healthcare agent named in your Health Care Directive (even if it seems redundant, explicit authorization in both documents eliminates uncertainty)
You can name multiple people. You can prioritize them. You can restrict what information each person receives if you choose. A skilled estate planning attorney can tailor the document to your specific family circumstances.
The Bottom Line
You have spent your entire life building relationships — a marriage, a family, friendships. You have trusted certain people with your deepest secrets, your fears, your hopes. You have trusted them with everything.
And yet, without a HIPAA Authorization, a federal privacy law will treat those people as strangers to your medical life the moment you are most vulnerable. This is not a document you get around to someday. This is not something you put on a list and revisit next year. Because the day you need it is also the day it becomes too late to get it.
Get your HIPAA authorization today. Do not wait for the emergency that cannot be undone.
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To protect your most valuable assets—your loved ones— read our article that describes the 36 documents and services you will get if you hire us to prepare your comprehensive estate plan with a revocable living trust or watch thie video about the documents and services. Our estate plan includes a HIPAA Authorization.