What if you are treating a patient and want another professional’s advice? Can you say, “What would you do for (person’s name) if they had (whatever condition)? Can you have this discussion without the patient’s consent or awareness that it is happening?

If you obtain the other professional’s advice in the process of providing treatment to the patient, you do not need to obtain additional patient authorization. However, if you are getting advice from someone in a more informal setting, such as with someone not involved in the patient’s care, you should not use the patient’s name or any other patient identifier. The best way to assure patient privacy is to remove patient identifiers whenever you can when discussing a patient or using his/her information (such as in classroom presentations).