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WASHINGTON, Mar 14 Reuters Health) - Key members of the health care industry want the Bush administration to delay medical records confidentiality rules--already pushed back from February to April--for several more months, officials said Wednesday.
"We are recommending that it is more important to handle this issue correctly than quickly," said Mary Grealy, President of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), which represents health plans, hospitals and provider groups, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
In comments on the rule, issued by the Clinton administration in December, and reopened by new Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson last month, the HLC, according to Grealy, called the new April 14 effective date "unworkable" because of the large number of problems with the rule that need to be fixed.
Among problems cited by Grealy and others in a briefing for reporters is the rule's protection of oral communications between providers and patients. Carlos Ortiz, director of government affairs for the pharmacy chain CVS, said the rule could require pharmacists to obtain written consent before recommending even over-the-counter medications.
Equally problematic is the requirement that providers have "prior written consents" on file. That, said Grealy, could result in "chaos at the pharmacy counters," because so many prescriptions are picked up not by patients themselves, but by family members or friends.
The HLC comments also recommend dropping from the rule a requirement that disclosed information be limited to the "minimum necessary to accomplish the intended purpose." Such a rule, the organization said, "is unnecessary and a potentially dangerous proposition."
Officials at the briefing also said that the two-year phase-in period for compliance is also unrealistically short, particularly given the need for hospitals in particular to raise capital to institute sophisticated electronic records systems. "Meeting the precise requirements of this rule in a paper environment just can't be done," said David Korn, MD, of the Association of American Medical Colleges.
But Grealy and other officials said that industry does not want the regulation scrapped entirely, as Congress voted to do with a controversial ergonomics regulation earlier this month. "We believe it can be fixed," she said of the privacy rules, with a final rule out by late summer.
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