A law professor at Emory University said in an opinion article published by The Hill that injured workers typically have less privacy than prisoners when it comes to their medical records.

Ani B. Satz, a professor of law and public health and director of the university's Project on Health Law, Policy & Ethics, said a complex story of federalism, judicial interpretation and state inaction created the current situation.

"States historically protected the privacy of their citizens and administered their own workers’ compensation systems under their 10th amendment powers," Satz wrote. "Federal medical privacy regulations thus contain an exception for workers’ compensation that assumes states will address injured workers’ privacy through their own laws. This exception has been widely misinterpreted by courts as eliminating federal privacy protections if states fail to act. And states have not filled in the gaps of privacy protection."

Satz acknowledged that it would be inappropriate to let workers impede the efficient administration of workers' compensation systems by refusing to disclose relevant medical information, but she said there's a significant difference between protecting system efficiency and gutting medical privacy protections entirely.

She suggested that states could enact laws to better protect the medical information of injured workers, and federal standards could be applied to states that fail to act.

"Injured workers deserve the same privacy protection as other patients," Satz concluded.