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Lawmakers Urge HIPAA FixJuly 20, 2001 -- The American Hospital Assocation reports that earlier this week a bipartisan group of 15 senators wrote DHHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, urging the administration to fix and help fund HIPAA's medical privacy rule. The Senate letter followed last week's identical call for changes from 165 representatives. The text of the letter from Congress follows: July 13, 2001 Dear Secretary Thompson: Americans need and deserve strong, effective privacy safeguards that maintain the confidentiality of their medical information while also allowing them to access and amend those records when necessary. However, some provisions of the medical privacy rules mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) go beyond the category of safeguards. Indeed some provisions if not modified could compromise patient care and essential hospital operations. To prevent this from happening we urge the administration to revise the rules promptly by addressing the serious concerns that health care providers have raised. We want this regulation to work. Key issues raised in the more than 24,000 written comments submitted to HHS on the medical privacy rules need to be fixed now, so that compliance can be successful. For example, it must be made clear that nurses have access to patient records in an emergency; doctors and nurses must not be hindered by unclear oral communications definitions and be permitted to discuss care and treatment issues with patients; scheduling patients for surgery, x-rays or other vital services shouldn't depend on patients having to complete exhaustive privacy and consent forms that could be 10 or more pages long, exacerbating the regulatory burden for Americans. We strongly urge the administration to promptly address these and other patient care issues raised by the rules. At the same time, we urge the administration to recognize the tremendous financial burden that the rules will force upon hospitals and providers, and to support the need for federal funding to help mitigate the extraordinary costs of complying with the privacy requirements. This is particularly important regarding our hospitals that are heavily reimbursed by public programs. The government itself estimates the total cost to be nearly $18 billion over five years. Other studies suggest the price tag is more than $22 billion for hospitals alone, and that those costs will not be offset by efficiencies brought by HIPAA's electronic transaction requirements. We hope you will work with us to ensure that the HIPAA medical privacy rules truly safeguard patient information without hurting patient care, and to help hospitals and providers cope with the enormous costs of complying with the rules. Sincerely, Representatives who have signed the Walden-Dooley HIPAA letter
to Secretary Thompson:
Senators who have signed the Crapo-Landrieu HIPAA letter to Secretary Thompson:
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