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| 12/28/2000 | ||||
Final HHS Privacy Rule Broadens Range of Covered Entities and Records James B. Wieland
On December 28, 2000, the Department of Health and Human Services published final regulations implementing privacy provisions passed by Congress in 1996. The final privacy rule is extremely broad in scope and application. It covers not only electronically stored and maintained records, but also paper records and other forms of "individually identifiable information." And the rule applies to almost anyone who could conceivably interact with sensitive patient information. For a concise, common-sense summary of the final privacy rule’s requirements, please see Jim Wieland’s article, "Final HIPAA Privacy Standards: Core Concepts and Challenges" in Ober|Kaler’s Spring 2001 Health Law Alert. We expect this article to be available on the Internet after March 9, 2001. You can download the final privacy rule from the Health Care Financing Administration’s Administrative Simplification Privacy page at http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/bannerps.htm. In a notice published in the February 28, 2001 Federal Register, the Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") announced an additional comment period on the final rule establishing the HIPAA Privacy Standards. You can obtain a copy of this notice by directing your browser to www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a010228c.html. Scroll down to "Health and Human Services Department." It is impossible to predict the extent of changes that may result, but HHS states that it has received "approximately a thousand inquiries" about the impact and operation of the Privacy Standards on various industry sectors, many of which express "substantial confusion" over how the standards will work and "great concern" over the complexity and workability of the rule. Most importantly, HHS states that "the significance of the Privacy Rule for the health care industry and for society as a whole, and the substantial nature of some of the concerns that have been raised have led us to conclude that an additional comment period . . . is warranted." At the very least, HHS seems to be clearly signaling an open mind as to the need to make compliance less burdensome. Additional comments will be considered if received no later than March 30, 2001. Separately, HHS "corrected" the effective date for the Privacy Standards, resulting in a compliance date of April 14, 2003. For more information regarding HHS’s December 28 regulation, please contact one of the following Ober|Kaler health law attorneys:
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Ober, Kaler, Grimes & Shriver Maryland Washington, D.C. Virginia |
