New Federal Privacy Regulations are now in effect
Please Help us to Visit the Sick!

Bikkur Cholim, the mitzvah of visiting the sick, is one of the most important of our Jewish obligations. It is also one of the most important things your rabbis and cantor do. Visiting the sick is a spiritual practice, which helps us to link the everyday with the divine. When we visit the sick, we bring inspiration into our own lives, into the life of the one we visit, and into the life of the community.

Jewish tradition teaches us that when we visit the sick we hasten their healing, by symbolically taking away some of their suffering. The rabbis believe that a sick person cannot recover alone, but needs the support of others.
In order to serve this role, however, the clergy need your help. New federal regulations to protect patient privacy went into effect April 14, and hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies have have now begun implementing very restrictive privacy rules.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act - HIPAA for short - requires all healthcare providers to ensure security and privacy of patient health information. Family, friends and clergy will now find it more difficult to get information about hospital patients under health privacy rules that give patients new power to keep their conditions secret. These rules affect us - they make it more difficult for us to find out if you are in the hospital, and to visit you in a timely manner.

So we need your help. Please let the hospital know that you would like them to inform your clergy that you are in the hospital. More important, please have someone notify the Temple office and keep us up to date. While you may expect that we will know you are in the hospital, we may not be aware until days or weeks later. Please help us to be aware of your hospitalization. We will keep all hospital lists and other personal information completely private, but we will also do our very best to serve you and fulfill the mitzvah of Bikkur Cholim.

James M. Bennett, Rabbi