On February 12, 2019, the Physician Clinical Registry Coalition submitted a comment letter to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in response to a request for information on modifying the HIPAA Rules to improve coordinated care.

The Coalition urged OCR to ensure that any potential new requirements to disclose PHI are consistent with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) ongoing rulemaking to prohibit ‘‘information blocking,’’ as defined by the 21st Century Cures Act.  The Coalition also strongly urged OCR to coordinate with the Office of Human Research Protections to eliminate conflicts or duplication between HIPAA and the Common Rule. Finally, as a part of the Coalition’s efforts to protect clinical registry data, the Coalition expressed its support for a safe harbor that protects data that identifies individual physicians and other health care providers from discovery in litigation.  The Coalition hopes to work with OCR and members of Congress on this issue.

In light of this request for information and ONC’s recently released proposed rule on information blocking, the Coalition looks forward to working with OCR, ONC, and other divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote information sharing and interoperability and reduce regulatory and administrative burden.

Click here to read the full letter.