Pharmacists Included as "Health Care Providers" Under Pennsylvania Health Care Records Law

This article appears in the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association news:

Diana Yap, APhA - April 10, 2012 - Pennsylvania appeals court opinion declares pharmacists are ‘health care providers’ under the law, citing state Pharmacy Practice Act and state board of pharmacy regulations. Calling pharmacists “health care providers” for the purposes of the Pennsylvania Medical Records Act (MRA), the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on March 23 issued an opinion important to pharmacy in the case of Landay v Rite Aid. The ruling reversed a lower court decision holding that the state’s MRA didn’t apply to pharmacies because a pharmacy customer was not a “patient.” “We find the fact that the court concluded that a pharmacist is a health care provider and that the recipient of prescription medication is a patient very interesting and promising, especially in light of the fact that certain government entities and others sometimes like to argue that pharmacists are not providers,” Patricia A. Epple, CAE, CEO of the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association, told pharmacist.com. Read more: http://www.pharmacist.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Pharmacy_News&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=28264