Which concept protects private health information?

• A. Confidentiality
• B. HIPAA
• C. Informed Consent
• D. Beneficence

Answer: (A)

Confidentiality is the obligation to keep a patient’s private health information private and to share it only with people who have a legitimate need to know or with the patient’s explicit consent. This protection matters because trust hinges on patients feeling safe to disclose sensitive details about their health, which in turn helps ensure accurate diagnoses and good care. In practice, confidentiality means safeguarding records, limiting who can view them, and honoring the patient’s control over who gets to see information.

HIPAA is the federal law that sets standards for privacy and security of health information, and it supports confidentiality by providing rules for how information can be used and shared. Informed consent, on the other hand, concerns obtaining a patient’s permission to proceed with treatment or to disclose information in specific circumstances, rather than the ongoing protection of privacy itself. Beneficence is about acting in the patient’s best interest, not specifically about guarding private information. So the concept that directly captures the protection of private health information is confidentiality.