April 2001 News Archives

April 30, 2001 New Study: Some Forms of Privacy Regulation May "Harm" Consumers Threats to individual privacy have never been greater due to the spread of electronic databases in government, medicine, business and the workplace. However, unwise legislation could destroy many benefits of information sharing for private individuals, according to a new study issued today by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). Full Story.

April 26, 2001 First DHHS Privacy Rule Guideline Due in May DHHS Secretary Tommy Thompson has announced that the first guideline to clarify the HIPAA Privacy Rule will be issued next month. Speaking before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Health, Thompson stated that DHHS plans to "develop guidelines to clarify certain points of confusion about the rule," and is also considering "where modifications to the rule may be needed to ensure that quality of care does not suffer inadvertently." He noted that the concerns of 11000+ commenters to the Privacy Rule, including interest groups and health care leaders, are being considered in formulating DHHS guidance and modifications. Full Story.

April 26, 2001 Associations Use National Broadcast to Promote Expected New Bill Seeking HIPAA Implementation Delay Spokespersons for several major healthcare trade associations voiced continued concerns about various aspects of HIPAA, during an interactive Internet broadcast on April 23rd presented by the Journal of Health Care Finance. These concerns included the varying implementation timetables, potential risks in installing expensive systems that may later need to be changed, the overall cost of HIPAA compliance, and the variation among providers' abilities and budgets relative to HIPAA implementation. Full Story.

April 24, 2001 Bush Wants Medical Mistakes Listed on Net The Bush administration is working to create an Internet-based clearinghouse of medical mistakes made by doctors and hospitals, with the intention of helping them avoid such errors in the future. Health care providers could use the Internet to report information to the federal government or to state and private-sector regulators. Full Story.

April 18, 2001 AHA Presses Congress, Administration on HIPAA The AHA will go to Congress as well as the administration for help in dealing with the HIPAA privacy rules that became effective April 14. Full Story.

April 18, 2001 New Spring 2001 Survey: Financial losses due to Internet intrusions, trade secret theft and other cyber crimes soar Findings of the "2001 Computer Crime and Security Survey" confirm that the threat from computer crime and other information security breaches continues unabated and that the financial toll is mounting. The sixth annual "Computer Crime and Security Survey was conducted by the Computer Security Institute (CSI) with the participation of the San Francisco FBI Computer Intrusion Squad. An example of the results: 85% of respondents (primarily large corporations and government agencies) detected computer security breaches within the last twelve months. Full Story

April 16, 2001 Interest Groups and Academics Call on Administration to Fill Privacy Position In a letter sent today, a diverse group of advocacy organizations and academics called on the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to hire a new Chief Privacy Counselor. The signers expressed concern that privacy would lose the momentum that it had gained at the end of last year. "We are concerned that without these central staff resources dedicated solely to privacy, we will return to a time when privacy was an afterthought in government and commercial data processing. Full Story.

April 13, 2001 Bush Medical Privacy Act Is Part of Wider Strategy
President Bush's decision to implement new medical-privacy protections, while shocking health-care industry officials, is part of a much broader presidential intention:: he intends to back a wide range of privacy protections for U.S. consumers, even though his business allies sometimes will object, aides say. Full Story.

April 13, 2001 Privacy Experts Comment on Privacy Decision in NPR Forum In a National Public Radio broadcast yesterday, Linda Wertheimer hosted a panel of privacy experts to comment on the Bush administration's decision to implement the controversial privacy rule. Full Story.

April 12, 2001 Organizations React to HIPAA Privacy Announcement Most organizations expressed mixed reactions to the decision to allow the HIPAA Privacy Rule to go into effect April 14th. DHHS also promised to make changes through implementation guidelies and modifications.

April 12, 2001 HIPAA Privacy Will Go Into Effect on Saturday According to a statement by DHHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, President Bush has decided to let the Privacy Rule go into effect as scheduled on Saturday. Secretary Thompson will provide implementation guidelines and modifications to make it clear that doctors can share medical information with specialists treating the same patients, pharmacists can fill prescriptions over the phone and parents can get information about their children's health, including records on abortion. Text of Statement.

April 9, 2001 Bush Administration Plans to Revise HIPAA Privacy Rule The Bush administration has concluded that federal standards to protect the privacy of medical records, adopted with much fanfare by President Bill Clinton in his last month in office, are unworkable and must be revised, according to a report in the New York Times. Administration officials said they would not kill the rules. They said, though, that the standards were fundamentally flawed and needed to be changed before they could take effect. Full Story.

April 9, 2001 Armey Warns Lawmakers on the Pitfalls Involved in Privacy Legislation Majority leader, Representative Dick Armey of Texas, is sending a strongly-worded letter to House lawmakers on the issue of privacy. The letter, according to Richard Diamond, a spokesman for Mr. Armey, attempts "to lay out this issue for members" and show "the various traps and pitfalls that await on privacy issues if they do it wrong." Text of Letter.

April 9, 2001 Privacy Advocate Urges No Delay In their formal comments, the Health Privacy Project urges that the effective date not be delayed. Other areas of concern address by the comment include the range of health information protected by HIPAA. HPP applauded the numerous right of patients, called the consent requirement "critical" and reiterated the importance of Business Associate provisions. 31 other organizations endorsed the comment, including the American Nurses Association and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Comment [PDF].

April 9, 2001 GAO Issues Report on HIPAA Consent On April 6th, the Government Accounting Office released a report on the consent requirements in the final HIPAA Privacy Rule. GAO stated, "The privacy regulation’s consent requirement will be more of a departure from current practice for some providers than for others. Most health care providers, with the exception of pharmacists, obtain consent from patients to release information to insurers for payment purposes." Report [PDF].

April 6, 2001 Report Finds Numerous Security Holes at HCFA In an inspector general report released yesterday, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) was cited for numerous security weaknesses in their electronic data processing. The report did not identify any actual compromise of the Medicare beneficiary data held by HCFA. Full Story.

April 6, 2001 AMA Comments on HIPAA Privacy Rule The American Medical Association calls for a limited extension of the medical privacy rule’s effective date to evaluate and improve the rule, according to a report in Health Data Management. The association recommends that the compliance date for the privacy rule, “as well as the related HIPAA Administrative Simplification rules, should be two years after the last of these final rules is published (with the exception of the individual identifier rule).” Full Story.

April 4, 2001 Seven Senators Ask for Delay of HIPAA Privacy Rule Seven of the Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee wrote to DHHS Secretary Thompson to "work quickly" to improve the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Full Story.

April 4, 2001 Business, Advocates Testify on Information Privacy Information privacy issues are too diverse and complex to be regulated under
a single law, corporations, lawyers and even privacy advocates told a
Congressional hearing April 3rd. According to a report by Reuters, only the
Consumers' Union advocated such a overarching law to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. Full Story.

April 4, 2001 Study Shows Transactions Cost Underestimated A study commissioned by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association shows the implementation costs for the HIPAA Transaction Reg has been underestimated. The Tillinghast-Towers Perrin report projects initial implementation costs for a mid-sized hospital (200-300 beds) of $775,000 to $3.5 million. That compares with an HHS estimate of $100,000 to $250,000 over 10 years, according to the study. Health Data Management Article.

April 3, 2001 Industry Group Urges DHHS to Delay HIPAA Privacy In a formal comment to DHHS, the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) said that a "race against the clock" would adversely effect patient care and urged for a delay past the April 14th effective date for HIPAA Privacy. HLC's 22-page comment letter addressed the prior consent requirement, regulating the use of identifiable information, the "minimum necessary" rule and oral communications coverage.

April 3, 2001 HIAA Recommends Delay of HIPAA Privacy Start Date The start date of proposed medical records confidentiality regulations should be postponed to allow time to fix provisions that could impede efforts to assess and improve health care quality, inhibit efforts to coordinate care, and compromise efforts to fight health care fraud, according to Chip Kahn, President of the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA).

April 3, 2001 Hastert Recommends Internet Industry Self-Regulation US House Speaker Dennis Hastert told a gathering of Internet technology executives Monday that the industry should adopt strict privacy standards so that government doesn't have to do it, according to a Newsday report. Full Story.

April 2, 2001 Court Dismisses Suits Against Doubleclick A US District Judge said in a ruling dated Thursday that the giant Internet advertising service provider, Double-Click, was not secretly collecting private and personal information from computer users, according to an AP report. Full Story.

April 2, 2001 Court Rules that Pharmacy Records Are Private A New York court said pharmacists could have a duty to keep customers' prescriptions and medical histories confidential. According to American Medical News, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that a patient may continue his privacy lawsuit against a pharmacy. Full Story.

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