To Combat ‘Information Blocking,’ Look To HIPAA

Back in 2009, when the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act became law, US taxpayers committed $300 million to seed nationwide health information exchange. Taxpayers also agreed to pay what turned out to be $35 billion in incentive payments for physicians and hospitals to adopt and “meaningfully use” electronic health records (EHRs). In implementing the meaningful-use program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required eligible providers and hospitals to attest to certain activities, including engaging in health information exchange and providing their patients with health information electronically. Concomitantly, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) required that, to be certified for use in the meaningful-use program, EHRs had to have the technical capability that enabled the meaningful-use requirements to be accomplished. More than eight years later, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG), some of those billions in meaningful-use payments may have been improperly paid. And, while we have widespread adoption of EHRs, we do not have widespread exchange of health information. Individuals still struggle to get their health information out of EHRs in an electronic format. Fortunately, there may be a solution that can help ensure that meaningful-use payments are well spent. It comes i...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Health IT 21st Century Cures electronic health records HIPAA information blocking medical data privacy Source Type: blogs