Health care providers nationwide are hustling to comply with strict federal guidelines that limit access to patient information. New privacy regulations go into effect April 14, and in some states they’re wreaking havoc as hospitals, doctors, dentists and other providers adjust their way of doing business to protect the privacy of their customers.

Maine, however, adopted stringent standards of its own in 1999, and though new policies and procedures have been implemented behind the scenes, most consumers will notice little change.

The most evident change will be more paperwork. Admission information at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor will include a new eight-page “Notice of Privacy Practices,” according to Jeff Sanford, compliance officer for Eastern Maine Healthcare.

The notice explains the hospital’s policies and practices regarding the protection of patient information and identifies where that information can be legally shared without the patient’s specific permission. It also outlines a patient’s right to get his own medical records.

Patients will be asked to sign an acknowledgement of having received the information – not that they’ve read or understood it.

Patients also must specify to whom the hospital may release even basic information, such as whether they’re registered and what room they’re in. They also may notice subtle changes in common areas such as waiting rooms, where computer screens will be repositioned, sign-in sheets simplified and other concessions to patient confidentiality may be adopted, said Sanford.

At St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, the privacy notice is abbreviated to two pages, but chief information officer Ron Crall said the longer version would be available. Crall said St. Joseph is tightening up administrative policies and practices, especially ensuring the safe storage and transmission of electronic data.

Sandy Parker, an attorney with the Maine Hospital Association, said the new federal regulations are a response to concerns that medical information is sometimes marketed or used inappropriately. For example, she said, lists of patients who use a specific medication have been sold to a competing drug maker for marketing purposes.

While there’s little doubt that such activities are unethical, Parker said, now they’re specifically banned. Auditors, accountants, attorneys – anyone with access to patients’ medical records – must contract with hospitals and other providers not to disclose that information.

Doctors’ offices must comply with the new guidelines, too. Gordon Smith, executive director of the Maine Medical Association, says most physicians resent the regulations as federal “micromanagement.” The administrative impact of the changes is huge, he said, while the benefits are small. The majority of patients will throw the privacy notice “in the circular file,” Smith predicted.

But advising patients of their legal right to their medical records represents an important, consumer-oriented change in the “paternalistic” traditions of health care, Smith said.