The Hawaii State protection of patient privacy received a major boost with the legislation in 1999 requiring confidentiality of patient medical records. However, the failure of the health care industry to comply with these regulations led to its withdrawal in 2001. This legislation contained provisions meant to protect the patient’s personal information. Under this legislation, patients had full access to their medical records from health care organizations. The health care providers were required to communicate their confidentiality practices openly to their patients. They were required to offer explanations to patients with regard to accessing the health information when required to do so and the exceptions of disclosure of the confidential information. It also offered an opportunity for patients to avoid disclosure of confidential information by paying them directly. Furthermore, the release of patient information was only to parties involved in the payment of the patient’s medical bills.
The implementation of this legislation was not possible because the law was not clear as to the care providers to comply with the requirements. There was also a problem of whether some insurance policies should get patient consent before using the information in court. The other concern was that the legislation was expensive to implement by the health care providers. Following these concerns, the Hawaii legislation could not be implemented. Only recently, the health plan proposal requires all that is covered by the insurance health plan to allow the insurers access to the patient’s information, a move that protects the health insurance from fraud performed by the doctors or patients.