HHS Secretary Alex Azar PROMISES REFORMS TO FEDERAL HEALTH PRIVACY RULES

Alex Azar at a meeting held in the Heritage Foundation on the 27th of July, addressing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that HHS will entertain quite many undertakings to several updates in health privacy regulations in the coming times, and this also includes updates on the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act HIPAA privacy policy along with the 45 CFR Part 2 regulations.

It is deemed that the process will commence in next few months. Information and HIPAA privacy training will be imparted, thereafter there will be a course of action in commencement to establish both set of rules to do away with hurdles for a value based care and support efforts to remove the crisis of opioid. The rules changes are going to be very dynamic and some of the on the field of data sharing that puts a hurdle in the efforts by provider of healthcare to a level up in the usage of electronic health technology.

The current regulations are complex and are creating disturbance in the collection of information and data by the healthcare providers, doctors, hospitals and payers to upgrade the quality of healthcare services and amalgamation of care and keeping the healthcare costs at bay.

This process has already been initiated with the Centers for Medical and Medicaid Services (CMS) and has proposed the most fundamental changes to Medicare in the recent times. This could be change in the basic evaluation visits of how the physicians are paid.

In the present scenario there is a presence of five tiers of payment for the visits, with payments increasing for visits of increasing the complexity. This system is sensible and practical but puts a lot of pressure on the physicians in terms of the administration and management, as they are to explain the reason of charging at a higher tier. It has been proposed by the CMS that the complex 5 tier system should be reduced to 2 tier system. This is a simple task that could save of about more than 50 hours a year that more than a week’s work and thus they could provide better health service to the required patient.

The CMS has also initiated a request for information of issue with Stark’s law, that specifically states that no physician will refer the patient to other physicians with whom they are linked financially, however this law has several expectations also. This information further has detailed information on HIPAA part 2 and the Anti- Kickback Statute. There will be proper online HIPAA training to safeguard the healthcare providers and help in the compliance of HIPAA rules. Healthcare providers also try to voice their matter about the compliance of HIPAA and the Anti – Kickback Statute should initiation of comments and suggestion policy update to examine these matters, ready for the submission when HHS demands for its submission.