• Clarify that no federal law prevents health care providers from warning law
enforcement authorities about threats of violence: Doctors and other mental health
professionals play an important role in protecting the safety of their patients and the broader
community by reporting direct and credible threats of violence to the authorities. But there is
public confusion about whether federal law prohibits such reports about threats of violence. The
Department of Health and Human Services is issuing a letter to health care providers clarifying
that no federal law prohibits these reports in any way.