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June 2002 News Archives:June 24, 2002 Final Privacy Rule Coming in August The Department of Health and Human Services will in August publish the new final privacy rule, making modifications to the rule now in effect. Health Data Management reports that's what John Hoff, HHS deputy assistant secretary, told attendees at the Association for Electronic Health Care Transactions (AFEHCT)'s recent Washington Policy Forum, according to Thomas Gilligan, executive director of AFEHCT. View our up-to-date Compliance Calendar detailing the schedule for publication of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Regulations. June
18, 2002 Kennedy Introduces Legislation on Health Reform
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) signaled his party's eagerness to
make health care a central political issue this year in a speech
he gave yesterday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Kennedy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) Committee, said he is introducing a bill to cut health companies'
administrative costs through new technology, a step that he said
"would save enough to finance universal health care several
times over." The bill, called the Efficiency in Health Care
Act or eHealth Care, intends to get health providers and health
insurers to use the most modern, low-cost information technology
available. The proposed technology bill will create stringent standards
for financial transactions, such as billing and claims processing.
Kennedy believes using the new technologies will dramatically cut
health care costs.
Kaiser Daily Health Policy reports a plan to enter a "new era of health reform" announced June 18 by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) could be "another attempt to socialize health care" and "should frighten sensible Americans," an Investors Business Daily editorial states. One measure would require health companies to cut administrative costs by using new technologies -- a step that he said could ultimately finance universal health coverage. But IBD writes that the health care system in the United States "isn't so bad" and that "no collective problem is building." June 18, 2002 Judge Dismisses HIPAA Lawsuit Filed by Rep. Paul & AAPS A federal judge in Houston has dismissed a lawsuit to overturn federal medical privacy regulations as unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed by US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) against HHS and Secretary Tommy Thompson. The judge determined that the plaintiffs had not suffered actual or imminent injury by enforcement of privacy regulations in health care. June 17, 2002 Cybersecurity Guide Delayed The federal government is pushing back plans to unveil the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a roadmap for securing cyberspace, from this summer to mid-September. Richard Clarke, White House special adviser for cyberspace security, said the plan, which has been under way for several months, will not be written by bureaucrats, but by people in such areas as higher education, banking, transportation, and state and local governments. June 17, 2002 Spam, Viruses Hit Bottom Line Harder in US than in Europe Computerworld reports the intrusion of viruses and spam on corporate networks has grown from an annoyance to a costly problem in the U.S., even forcing companies to double up on prevention. In Europe, however, privacy protections may be limiting the spam problem. Aetna, Inc. runs Trend Micro's InterScan software along with Symantec antivirus software to scan incoming emails for viruses and spam. "Our belief is that most security products fail eventually, in some way. But when they do, they don't [all] fail in the same way," said Alan Pawlak, security manager at Aetna. June 14, 2002 Tracking HIPAA Security Progress According to Health Data Management, provider and payer organizations must implement significant portions of the security rule--final or not--to fully comply with the privacy rule, which has an April 14, 2003, deadline. “You can have security without privacy, but you cannot have privacy without security,” says Thomas Walsh, principal consultant at CTG HealthCare Solutions, Cincinnati. “By default, you need some minimum security in place by April.” Walsh spoke at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) inaugural Summer Conference this week in Las Vegas. He gave attendees a HIPAA Security Readiness checklist of 36 tasks, some of which should be completed now and others which should be in progress. View the HIPAA Security Readiness checklist. June 14, 2002 JCAHO Not HIPAA Enforcer Two common misconceptions concerning the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) were clarified at the HIMSS' Summer Conference this week. Speaking at the conference, Richard Croteau, M.D., executive director for strategic initiatives at JCAHO, said that JCAHO will not enforce HIPAA requirements, despite what some attorneys and consultants have been purporting in recent years. "We will survey compliance with accreditation standards, not HIPAA regulations." Another misconception, according to Croteau, is that HIPAA and JCAHO requirements conflict with each other. "There are no contradictions between HIPAA and JCAHO standards," contends Croteau. June 14, 2002 Genome Project will Challenge CIOs The human genome project will be an "incredible" information technology challenge, the biggest in the next generation, says Gregory Stock, M.D., director of the program on medicine, technology and society at UCLA School of Medicine."There will be tension between privacy, safety and progress," Stock predicted at the HIMSS' Summer Conference this week, reports Health Data Management. "If you put a lock around the privacy of medical records, you will slow development of new technologies." Future advances in gene knowledge also will significantly affect the insurance industry and will generate a re-examination of patient privacy rights. If consumers have access to information on their predisposition toward specific diseases and that information is not available to insurers, consumers with a genetically higher risk of disease will load up on insurance. But if insurers get such information, large segments of the population may not be able to get or afford health coverage. June 11, 2002 HIPAA May Forbid Sports Leagues to Say if Player Is Hurt According to the New York Times, HIPAA may prevent major sports league officials who talk about injuries from disclosing a player's medical information without consent. If professional and amateur players assert privacy rights as provided by the law, the resulting information embargo could affect betting lines, trades, bidding for free agents. Rob Manfred, the chief labor lawyer for Major League Baseball, said that while the law might be useful in other businesses, "it doesn't make sense that the New York Yankees can't tell their fans about the condition of their star pitcher." June 7, 2002 HRSA Offers Help with HIPAA HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is accepting applications for a $15 million grant program to help small rural hospitals of 49 or fewer beds implement certain programs, including HIPAA compliance. The agency announced the Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program June 5 in the Federal Register, reports Health Data Management. Read the June 5th Federal Register announcement. June 7, 2002 HHS Receives Thousands of Requests to Extend Compliance Deadline According to AHANews, more than 13,000 companies and organizations are seeking an additional year to comply with HHS' rule on electronic data interchange, Elizabeth Holland of HHS' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service told a regulation compliance conference this week. Affected entities have until Oct. 15 to submit a compliance plan or ask for an extension under the Administrative Simplification Compliance Act (ASCA). June 3, 2002 C-SPAN Airs Medical Privacy Interviews Last week C-SPAN's Washington Journal program aired two interviews on medical privacy and the HIPAA privacy regulation. The first interview, with HHS deputy secretary Claude Allen, aired on Wednesday, May 29. The second interview, aired on Thursday, May 30, was with Janlori Goldman, director of Georgetown University's Health Privacy Project. Watch the interviews on C-SPAN's Web site. June 3, 2002 Health Privacy Project Releases Revised Summaries of Eight More States' Statutes Today, the Health Privacy Project released revised summaries of the health privacy statutes of eight states: Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. These updated summaries reflect changes in state health privacy statutes that have been made since the original report, "The State of Health Privacy: An Uneven Terrain (A Comprehensive Survey of State Health Privacy Statutes)," was published in 1999. The Health Privacy Project will continue to issue updated state summaries over the next few weeks. View the updated state summaries at the Health Privacy Project Web site. News ArchivesGo to TOP |
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