Legal and Ethical Considerations of Disclosing Human Immunodeficiency Virus Seropositivity to a Surrogate Decision Maker.

Ethical and legal issues arise when a patient who is human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive lacks decision-making capacity and the HIV status must be disclosed to a surrogate decision maker to allow for informed medical decision making. This article discusses the special exceptions to confidentiality built into the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy protections, the limitations on claims of common-law marriage, and public health laws that often require informing individuals who are either sex partners or needle-sharing partners of newly diagnosed HIV-infected individuals that they have been exposed to HIV infection.