People searching this term are usually looking for clinical information, and clinical information is a clinician’s to give. Nothing here describes what a closed head injury is, how it presents, or what anyone should do about their health — those questions belong to a qualified professional, not to a law firm.
What a law firm can set out is what happens to such an injury once it becomes the subject of a claim, and in particular what happens to a person’s medical privacy at that moment. Because the answer is counterintuitive: bringing a claim for a head injury opens a patient’s records in a way that nothing else in ordinary life does, and Nevada sets out exactly how in statute.
Anyone considering a claim after a fall is better served knowing that in advance than discovering it when the records are requested.
Key Takeaways
- A head injury claim is usually disputed on history rather than on whether the fall happened.
- Nevada gives a patient a privilege over confidential communications with a doctor, extending to those participating in diagnosis or treatment.
- The privilege may be claimed by the patient, a guardian or conservator, or a deceased patient’s personal representative.
- NRS 49.245 sets out ten exceptions, and one applies directly to anyone bringing an injury claim.
- There is no privilege as to written medical or hospital records relevant to the patient’s condition where that condition is an element of a claim or defence.
- That exception is expressed in terms of written records rather than communications generally.
- A court-ordered examination carries its own exception, limited to the particular purpose of the examination unless the court orders otherwise.
The Dispute Is Usually About History, Not About the Fall
In a contested head injury claim the argument is rarely that the person did not fall. Falls are often recorded, witnessed or captured. The argument is about what the fall caused, and the usual form it takes is that the difficulty complained of existed before, arose from something else, or is not of the kind attributed to it.
Answering that requires a comparison, and a comparison requires both sides of it. The period after the fall is documented by whatever was created at the time. The period before it is documented by a person’s existing medical history — which is exactly what a defendant will want to see.
That is why medical privacy becomes a live question in these cases at a stage most people do not expect, and why it is worth understanding before a claim is made rather than afterwards.
Nevada Gives a Patient a Privilege
The starting position is protective. NRS 49.225 provides that “a patient has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent any other person from disclosing confidential communications among the patient, the patient’s doctor or persons who are participating in the diagnosis or treatment under the direction of the doctor, including members of the patient’s family.”
Two features of that are worth noting. The privilege is not only a right to stay silent — it is a right “to prevent any other person from disclosing,” so it reaches the doctor and others, not just the patient. And its scope is drawn around the treating relationship broadly, covering people participating in diagnosis or treatment under the doctor’s direction and expressly including family members who are part of that.
NRS 49.235 says who may assert it. Under subsection 1 the privilege “may be claimed by the patient, by the patient’s guardian or conservator, or by the personal representative of a deceased patient.” Under subsection 2 the doctor “may claim the privilege but only on behalf of the patient,” and that authority “is presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary.”
Claiming an Injury Creates an Exception
NRS 49.245 opens with the words “there is no privilege under NRS 49.225 or 49.235” and then lists ten circumstances. Most of them concern specific regulatory or criminal contexts. One of them applies to any ordinary injury claim.
Under the fourth exception, there is no privilege “as to written medical or hospital records relevant to an issue of the condition of the patient in any proceeding in which the condition is an element of a claim or defense.”
Read what triggers it. The condition has to be “an element of a claim or defense” in the proceeding. A person who brings a claim for a head injury has made their condition an element of that claim by definition — it is the thing being claimed about. The exception is not something a defendant has to argue the claimant into. It follows from the nature of the claim itself.
What the Exception Says It Reaches
The wording repays close attention, because it is narrower in one respect than people assume and is often described loosely.
The exception is expressed as applying “as to written medical or hospital records.” It is not drafted as a general abolition of the privilege for anyone who sues, and it is not framed in terms of communications at large. It is also qualified by relevance: the records have to be “relevant to an issue of the condition of the patient.”
How far that reaches in a particular case — which records are relevant to which issue, and what remains protected — is a question decided by the court on the facts and on argument this page does not attempt. What can be said from the text is that the exception is drawn around written records relevant to the condition in issue, and that the statute chose those words rather than broader ones.
The practical consequence for someone considering a claim is nonetheless real. Records bearing on the condition claimed about are within the exception, and that can include records from well before the fall, because a defendant’s case is frequently that the condition predates it.
A Court-Ordered Examination Is Its Own Exception
The third exception in NRS 49.245 covers a different situation and has a built-in limit.
There is no privilege “as to communications made in the course of a court-ordered examination of the condition of a patient with respect to the particular purpose of the examination unless the court orders otherwise.”
Two limits sit inside that sentence. The loss of privilege is tied to “the particular purpose of the examination,” rather than extending to everything said during it. And the whole exception is subject to the court ordering otherwise, so the position can be adjusted by the court that directed the examination in the first place.
An examination of that kind is a distinct event from ordinary treatment, and the communications in it are treated distinctly.
Why This Bites Harder on a Head Injury Claim
The exception applies to any claim in which a condition is an element, so it is not specific to head injuries. What is specific is how much work the comparison does.
Where an injury is a discrete event with a discrete record, the before-and-after comparison is short. Where the claim is that a person’s functioning changed, the comparison is the claim, and it draws in whatever documents the earlier period. The result is that the privilege exception has more to operate on, and a defendant has more reason to use it.
Nothing in this changes whether a claim is worth bringing, and nothing in it says anything about whether a particular injury is real or serious. It is a reason to know, at the outset, that a claim of this kind puts medical history into the proceeding by operation of the statute — and to make decisions about the claim with that understood rather than as a surprise.
What has to be established against a property, and the wider framework for a premises claim, is covered in the firm’s guide to Nevada slip and fall claims.
Speak to a Nevada Premises Injury Attorney
Decisions about a claim are better made with the full picture, and the effect on medical privacy is part of that picture rather than a detail to be handled later. It is a question worth raising at a first conversation rather than one to encounter mid-claim.
Vaksman Khalfin, PC acts for injured people across Nevada from the firm’s Las Vegas office at 10161 Park Run Drive, Suite 150. The first consultation is free, and injury claims are handled on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront cost, attorney’s fees are owed only out of a recovery, and fees and case costs are separate items set out in the written agreement. Wider material sits in the Nevada personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Robert B. Vaksman, Partner, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in Nevada). Last reviewed: 10/30/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, as a starting position. NRS 49.225 gives a patient a privilege "to refuse to disclose and to prevent any other person from disclosing" confidential communications among the patient, the doctor and persons participating in diagnosis or treatment under the doctor's direction.
Under NRS 49.235(1) the patient, a guardian or conservator, or the personal representative of a deceased patient. The doctor may claim it under subsection 2, "but only on behalf of the patient."
It engages an exception. NRS 49.245 provides that there is no privilege "as to written medical or hospital records relevant to an issue of the condition of the patient in any proceeding in which the condition is an element of a claim or defense."
The exception is expressed in terms of written medical or hospital records that are relevant to an issue of the patient's condition, rather than as a general removal of the privilege. What that covers in a particular case is decided by the court.
They can fall within the exception where they are relevant to an issue of the condition in question, which is frequently a defendant's position in a disputed claim.
A separate exception applies. There is no privilege as to communications made in the course of a court-ordered examination "with respect to the particular purpose of the examination unless the court orders otherwise."
NRS 49.245 lists ten. Most address specific regulatory, administrative or criminal contexts; the one that matters in an ordinary injury claim is the condition-as-an-element exception.
No. The exception applies to any proceeding in which a condition is an element of a claim or defence. It simply has more to work on where the claim depends on a comparison across time.
