Physicians and other health care providers must now report cases of HIV infection to health officials using patients’ names. Previously, such cases were reported using alphanumeric codes created from birth dates, gender, and elements of patients’ last names.

This change is the result of a law signed Monday by Governor Schwarzenegger. The CMA-supported “urgency” bill (SB 699) passed unanimously in both the Senate and the Assembly. Because of the bill’s urgency clause, name-based reporting of HIV cases in California will begin immediately.

The code-based reporting system was created in 2002 to ensure patient confidentiality, but it proved to be a bureaucratic nightmare for health officials and the resulting data was unreliable. California was one of just 7 states that hadn’t already switched to a confidential name-based reporting system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not consider code-based HIV reporting to be accurate, and federal officials have said they will withhold funds from states that use code-based reporting rather than names-based reporting.

Click here to read a letter to providers about these new reporting requirements from the California Department of Health Services.

Contact: Robin Flagg, 415/882-5110 or rflagg@cmanet.org.