Your Secrets Are Safer if Your Therapist is a PhD, Not an MD

Cross v. Superior Court, No. B277600 (D2d5 May 1, 2017)

A psychiatrist is under investigation for over-prescribing Adderall. After reviewing her prescription records, a Board of Medical examiners subpoenaed the doctor for the medical records of three patients to whom it appear that over-prescriptions occurred. The psychiatrist—claiming that she couldn’t get consent from the patients—refused to comply with the subpoenas on grounds of the physician-patient and psychotherapist-patient privileges as well as the right to medical privacy. The trial court overruled the objections and order the records produced. The doc took a writ.