The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and its regulations create a procedure for obtaining authority to use protected health information in litigation, including requesting a qualified protective order. 45 C.F.R. § 164.512(e).

For agreed HIPAA qualified protective orders, counsel shall file a motion for an agreed HIPAA qualified protective order, unless the Court has given prior leave to submit a HIPAA qualified protective order without a motion. To the extent possible, counsel should use the Court’s sample HIPAA Qualified Protective Order. Any proposed HIPAA qualified protective order must also be provided to Judge Jensen’s proposed order inbox in Word format. If the proposed HIPAA qualified protective order differs from the Court’s sample, in addition to a clean Word version of the revised HIPAA qualified protective order, counsel must provide a redlined copy showing any changes. The clean and redlined copies of the HIPAA qualified protective order shall be submitted to Judge Jensen’s proposed order inbox: Proposed_Order_Jensen@ilnd.uscourts.gov.

For disputed HIPAA qualified protective orders or in cases where a party is incarcerated and has not otherwise agreed to the order, counsel shall file a motion for a HIPAA qualified protective order, provide a copy of the HIPAA qualified protective order to Judge Jensen’s proposed order inbox as directed above, and properly set the motion for presentment before Judge Jensen. See Local Rule 5.3(b). If a party is incarcerated, counsel should ensure that the party has received a copy of the proposed HIPAA qualified protective order before the scheduled hearing on the motion. The Court notes that if a party is seeking entry of a HIPAA qualified protective order before a discovery schedule has been addressed and the parties have not otherwise stipulated to conduct early discovery, the request for a HIPAA qualified protective order may be premature. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(1) ("A party may not seek discovery from any source before the parties have conferred as required by Rule 26(f), except... when authorized by these rules, by stipulation, or by court order.”).