Differentiate between privilege and confidentiality in the medical context.

• A. Confidentiality means information is protected by law; privilege is an ethical duty.
• B. Privilege and confidentiality are the same concept.
• C. Confidentiality is the provider’s obligation to protect PHI; privilege is a legal protection preventing disclosure of communications in court.
• D. Privilege applies only to written records.

Answer: (C)

Confidentiality is the clinician’s duty to protect patient information and share it only with people involved in care or with the patient’s consent, grounded in ethics and privacy laws. Privilege is a legal protection that can prevent certain patient–physician communications from being disclosed in court; it’s a legal shield that limits evidence, not a routine professional obligation. Therefore, describing confidentiality as the provider’s obligation to protect PHI and privilege as a legal protection preventing disclosure in court captures the distinct roles: confidentiality governs everyday handling of information, while privilege governs what can be said or admitted in legal proceedings. The other options mix up scope or purpose (for example, treating confidentiality as solely a legal duty, or claiming privilege applies only to written records, or treating the two as the same), which doesn’t fit these separate concepts.