Congressmen Prepare to Pressure DHHS on Privacy

May 3, 2001 -- Members of Congress are circulating a letter, urging HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to fix the HIPAA privacy rule and support additional funds to help hospitals comply. Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR), Cal Dooley (D-CA), Mike Pence (R-IN), and David Phelps (D-IL), are circulating "Dear Colleague" letters on Capitol Hill this week, asking their colleagues to sign on to letter asking the Bush administration to fix the privacy rules now.

According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), 26 House members have signed the letter.

Both the "Dear Colleague" letter and the letter to Sec. Thompson follow:

Dear Colleague,

Please join us in urging the administration to fix and modify the new patient privacy regulations issued pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). As you know, the Secretary of Health and Human Services announced on April 12^th the Administration's decision to implement the regulations issued late last year.

This landmark effort to establish patient privacy standards, if left in its current form, includes elements that are unworkable and will interfere with providing quality health care. However, we support implementation of the privacy standard and are convinced it can be fixed. The Administration has also announced its intent to remedy the current flaws in the rule. The Administration needs our input on this matter. The scope of the regulation is significant and will require providers and facilities to implement dramatic system improvements. In rural communities, the task will be particularly daunting.

We hope you will take this opportunity to express your interest in seeing a strong but workable medical records privacy regulation implemented. Please contact Jeff Eager at x56730 in Representative Walden's office by Wednesday May 9, 2001 if you are interested in co-signing the attached letter to Secretary Thompson.

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,