Committee hears competing views on bill to ensure parents electronic access to minors' medical records

Representative Melissa Litchfield and Melissa Blasek (Rebuild NH) introduced House Bill 560 on Feb. 11, a proposal to strengthen parental access to minor children’s medical records, particularly patient-portal electronic records, while carving out statutory exceptions for services that federal or state law already protects (for example, certain reproductive-health and substance-use services).

Sponsors said the problem is widespread: parents report losing portal access to children’s records when children reach an age (commonly about 12) and that practices sometimes require minors to create independent accounts or otherwise block parents from portal access. Supporters framed the bill as a patient‑safety and parental‑rights fix that would help parents coordinate care, avoid drug interactions and ensure continuity of treatment.

Opponents urged caution and described technical and legal obstacles. Ben Bradley of the New Hampshire Hospital Association said hospitals share the goal of parent engagement but warned that many patient-portal platforms cannot reliably redact records (for example, entries for reproductive or substance-use services) and that the bill’s language could create an untenable compliance burden. Bradley also raised operational questions about how providers would treat preliminary protective orders, bail or probation conditions, or other court directives that might transiently affect parental access.

The New Hampshire Medical Society and practicing clinicians testified that confidentiality is essential to allow minors to seek behavioral-health, sexual-health and substance‑use services; they argued that mandated disclosure could deter minors from seeking care. The state Child Advocate, Cassandra Sanchez, opposed the bill and highlighted the inclusion of therapeutic records in the medical record definition; she described cases in which parental access to medical portals had been used to manipulate or endanger children who were in state care.

Several legislators and parent advocates pressed for practical fixes — including specifying the standard clinicians should use before withholding records (several witnesses objected to “clear and convincing” language in earlier drafts), and allowing providers to deliver redacted paper records or alternate electronic methods when portals cannot segregate protected information.

Officials from Dartmouth Health and other hospital systems offered to work with the committee on statutory language and technical solutions. The committee did not take a vote. Several witnesses urged drafting amendments to align the bill with HIPAA and existing state confidentiality law and to allow operational exceptions when portals cannot safely or technically meet the statute’s redaction requirements.