HARTFORD — The Connecticut Supreme Court will be deciding an issue that most people may think is already settled — whether doctors have a duty to keep patients’ medical records confidential.
A trial court judge in Bridgeport ruled in 2015 that Connecticut law, unlike laws in many other states, has yet to recognize a duty of confidentiality between doctors and their patients, or that communications between patients and doctors are privileged under common law.
The decision came in a paternity case where a doctors’ office in Westport sent the medical file of a child’s mother without her permission to a probate court under a subpoena issued by the father’s lawyer and the father was able to look at the file.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case Monday.
