AMA Urges Caution on HIPAA Overhaul
The proposed rule to modify the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), issued in December 2020, applies to health information maintained or transmitted by HIPAA-covered entities, including providers, health plans and clearinghouses. The goal of the proposed rule is to make information sharing more efficient during the COVID pandemic as well as boost value based care. While there is a great deal of support to overhaul the United States’ health privacy law in order to encourage patient access and care coordination, provider groups are concerned about the impact of patient health information (PHI) privacy and security if it becomes more widely available.
In a letter to the Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the American Medical Association (AMA) urged the OCR to rethink making major changes to HIPAA while health care organizations are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic while working to understand and comply with interoperability and data access rules: ” We urge OCR to reconsider implementing a massive change to patient privacy laws in the midst of this transition,” the group wrote. To review the article, click here.
