 Close Up: Clergy juggle prayer requests with privacy rights
April 20, 2004 A UMNS Report By Amy Green* Submitting a prayer request at First United Methodist Church in Rockwall, Texas, isn’t as easy as pulling the pastor aside for a chat about an ailing aunt.
Parishioners
must fill out a form put together by an attorney and include written
approval if the prayer is for someone other than themselves. The new
policy comes after the church suspended publication of prayer requests
in its church bulletin and newsletter for four months because of
complaints about disclosed information.
Privacy rights
have become a growing concern among churches, especially since
far-reaching federal regulations meant to protect patient privacy went
into effect last April. The regulations, part of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act, have prompted clergy across the
United States to rethink how they pray for parishioners.
Some
have scaled back or scrapped the prayer requests they share with
congregations. Others find their care for hospitalized parishioners
thwarted. They say they feel torn between their mission to minister to
those in need and their obligation to be conscious of legal dangers.
“We’ve
missed some people. They’ve come and gone from the hospital again, and
maybe sometime later they’ll say, ‘Didn’t you know?’” said the Rev.
Dennis Shock, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Crown Point,
Ind., which draws about 400 on an average Sunday. “I feel a little
frustrated and sometimes a little guilty.”
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Experts say less information is better when sharing prayer requests with congregations. |
| Prayer
requests have been on hold in the bulletin at the First United
Methodist Church in Rockwall, Texas. Because churches often print the
names and ailments of those on the prayer lists, under new privacy
guidelines, the churches could become liable. HIPAA is not the only law
regulating the disclosure of private information. In general, less
information is better when sharing prayer requests with congregations.
When possible, it is best to get consent from parishioners before
sharing anything about them. UMNS photo number W04075, Accompanies UMNS
#188, 4/20/04 |
It is an unintended consequence of privacy laws and regulations
such as HIPAA’s. The law was approved in 1996 to address primarily
health insurance issues. Its privacy regulations direct health plans and
providers in how to share patient information, but the rules do not
prohibit clergy from visiting patients or praying for them with
congregations.
However, the law does prohibit sharing
patient information without consent when clergy are employed by
hospitals as chaplains or churches that provide mental health services. The
laws are so vast and new, many are interpreting them in different ways.
For example, hospitals used to provide clergy with a list of patients
sorted by denomination. Now some continue to provide the list with
patient consent, but others have scrapped it altogether.
HIPAA
prompted enough confusion among churches that United Methodist
attorneys posted a 12-page memorandum summarizing the law and its
effects on the General Council on Finance and Administration’s Web site
in February. The
law is not aimed at pastors, and so many clergy concerns are unfounded,
said Dan Gary, associate general counsel with the council in Evanston,
Ill. But some are legitimate.
Gary cited the case of a
Presbyterian church music director in Ohio who filed suit over
information disclosed in a church bulletin that was posted on the
Internet. The man had been hospitalized for months with depression. The
case, filed before HIPAA’s privacy regulations took effect, went to the
state Court of Appeals, which ruled the man had grounds to sue.
“That
was an example of where less information might have mitigated the
situation,” Gary said. “There’s really nothing wrong with getting
consent for these kinds of disclosures even when you aren’t legally
required to do so. There’s what the law allows you to do, and then
there’s the right thing to do.”
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To address privacy concerns, First United Methodist Church of Rockwall, Texas, has created a form for prayer requests. |
| First
United Methodist Church in Rockwall, Texas, temporarily stopped
publishing prayer requests so church leaders could address privacy
concerns. An attorney at the church drafted a prayer request form, and
the church is working on a new form to allow parishioners to make some
prayer requests public and keep others private among the church
leadership. |
Shock now is more careful about the information he shares when
reading prayer concerns during Sunday services. But he is more concerned
about how HIPAA has affected his ability to minister to hospitalized
parishioners. He used to get a call from the local hospital when a
parishioner was admitted. Now he struggles for information even after a
member is released on whether the patient was sent home or to another
facility.
“Rarely has this been an issue in my 30 years in
ministry,” he said. “Usually the problem is the other way — the
parishioner will be in the hospital and no one knows and they get upset,
or they get upset that we haven’t put them on the prayer list.”
It
is a troubling trend because pastoral care is an important part of a
patient’s recovery, said Josephine Schrader, executive director of the
Association of Professional Chaplains.
“There are some
studies that have shown that people who are prayed with and prayed for
have shorter recovery times,” she said. “It’s a comfort, a reassurance, a
calming effect that they don’t feel as alone.”
The
decision to stop publishing prayer requests at Rockwall’s First United
Methodist Church came last summer as a way to give church leaders time
to figure out how to address privacy concerns. An attorney who is a
member of the church drafted a prayer request form. Now the church is
working on a new form that would allow parishioners to make some prayer
requests public and keep others private just among the church
leadership.
“We want to take seriously our responsibility
to pray for each other as a community,” said the Rev. Valarie Englert,
associate pastor of the church, which draws about 650 on an average
Sunday. “So we’re trying to figure out how to walk that fine line
between showing trustworthiness and sharing of each other’s
burdens.” *Green
is a freelance journalist based in Nashville, Tenn. News media can
contact Kathy L. Gilbert (615)742-5471 Nashville, Tenn.or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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