On April 17, 2006, a new California law took effect requiring physicians and other health care providers to 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 was the result of a CMA-supported “urgency” bill (SB 699), which passed unanimously in both the Senate and the Assembly and was signed by the governor in April. Although the regulations implementing this law have not yet been finalized, the bill’s urgency clause required California physicians to immediately begin using patient names when reporting HIV cases.

In response to the new law, the California Department of Health Services (DHS) has developed a modified HIV/AIDS reporting form. The revised form, which reflects the new HIV reporting law and the anticipated requirements of the new regulations, can be downloaded from the DHS website, http://www.dhs.ca.gov/aids.

DHS has one year to develop and implement the regulations. Until the regulations are implemented, physicians can continue using the old case report form with the addition of the patient name. Use of the modified reporting form will be mandatory once the regulations take effect.

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 seven states that had not 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.

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