Private or secret information, practices, or procedures. Confidentiality, as of a medical record, refers to the degree and circumstances in which information in such a record is private or secret. Information which is held confidential may include medical, financial or other information about patients obtained in the course of medical practice, and information about the cost, quality and nature of the practice of individual and institutional providers obtained through payment and regulation programs. Confidentiality is in practice very hard to protect and various detailed efforts to do so in the health field have already been written into law, section 333 of the Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Act of 1970 and title XI, part B of the Social Security Act. The circumstances under which information should be confidential are often controversial since confidentiality may well keep secret inappropriate acts by patients or providers, but its absence may well limit the freedom and confidence with which medicine is practiced or expose providers and patients to unnecessary embarrassment.