Even before the pandemic overwhelmed the U.S. healthcare system, healthcare organizations were struggling to prepare for the new set of rules that would codify demands that they make patient health information freely available. The rules, which were established by ONC based on the 2016 Cures Act, call for providers to make some big steps forward in how they give patients access to their health data.
The Information Blocking and Improving Interoperability provisions of the final rules officially began being enforced on April 5 of this year (Check out John’s health information blocking interview with ONC for more details). However, under the circumstances, it seems that many organizations targeted by these rules are far from up to speed, according to a new survey conducted by Life Image.
Under HIPAA requirements, providers must give patients, upon request, access to the protected health information in the form and format of the individuals choosing, including electronic formats and by a third-party application. The final Cures Act Bill, which emerged from the 21st Century Cures Act, gives patients greater control and access to their healthcare data and targets vendors and technologies that block access to this information.
To conduct the survey, Life Image reached out to nearly 4,000 clinical, technology and administrative leaders from provider, payer, IT and other organizations in March of this year. Broadly speaking, researchers found that many respondents lacked awareness of how to comply with the new rules.
In theory, these organizations should have been prepared, as 70% of respondents reported that they were aware of the rules going into effect. However, almost half of the respondents had either not made changes to the information sharing practices or didn’t know how to make sure their facility met the requirements of the new rules.
Forty-seven percent of survey respondents were not familiar with the term “information blocking” and 48% weren’t aware of practices or policies that would be considered information blocking.
Almost half of the same individuals said they were continuing to engage in troublesome information sharing practices, such as sharing records by paper (66%) or CDs (32%) or charging patients fees to obtain records. Fifteen percent of respondents currently charge $25 or more for patients to obtain their medical records.
Some of the facilities may face legal jeopardy and not even know it. Apparently, 39% did not know they could incur civil monetary penalties for information blocking practices.
If providers can’t do any better than this when it comes to information blocking rules, they can expect to find themselves in deep trouble going forward. While the ONC is obviously aware of the challenges they face, it’s not as though they didn’t know this was coming. It will be interesting to see just how much leeway OCR gives providers given the massive additional burden COVID has imposed on their organizations. My guess is that the agency will give providers a six to twelve-month breather but after that, will throw enforcement processes into high gear.
You must request your records. Aggregate them and make them available when needed. Don’t count on the non existent interoperability!