If you’re familiar with the 21st Century Cures Act, then you know that October 6th is a major deadline that requires healthcare providers, health IT developers, HIEs, HINs, and others to share all ePHI (electronic protected health information) in the DRS (Designated Record Set). This is a big change from the requirement to share USCDI. While we’ve known about this deadline for years, it’s not too surprising that many healthcare organizations aren’t ready for it.
Given this reality, 10 healthcare organizations have sent a combined letter to HHS asking for a 1 year delay for this deadline. Here are the 10 organizations that signed the letter:
- America’s Essential Hospitals
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American Health Care Association (AHCA)
- American Hospital Association
- American Medical Association
- Association of American Medical Colleges
- Federation of American Hospitals
- Medical Group Management Association
- National Association for the Support of Long Term Care (NASL)
- The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)
The letter suggests a number of important things leading off with the fact that a large portion of healthcare organizations aren’t ready for the change. They highlight specifically that many smaller organizations aren’t ready for the change and that many of them don’t even know about the requirement. Plus, they suggest that this regulation would be an extra burden on top of staff that were already significantly impacted by COVID.
They also highlight that many of the health IT and EHR vendors haven’t updated their systems in order for their users to comply with the regulation. 39% of those surveyed by CHIME said that they were concerned about receiving an upgrade of their health IT system in time to comply. Plus, they noted that the deadline for health IT vendors to comply is 3 months after providers are required to comply.
The other major problem they share is that many of the guidelines and requirements are vague and they haven’t gotten the clarifications from HHS that they need to feel comfortable that they’re complying with the new regulations. For example, the definition of EHI and how it applies to various data isn’t clear and how the 8 exceptions apply is also confusing to many.
The letter also suggests that some are still afraid of the potential harm from releasing lab results to patients in some instances. Not to mention guides to protect sensitive health records such as substance abuse disorder, adolescent, mental health, and reproductive information.
The organizations do suggest they support HHS’ efforts to “advance health data exchange and interoperability while advancing health equity for all.” Plus, they said they’ve been diligently helping their members understand the regulations, but that there’s a need to push back this regulation by a year.
I’ve given up trying to predict that government organizations like HHS and ONC will do. COVID already delayed some of the information blocking requirements which makes me wonder if there’s an appetite for delay like this or not. Time will tell, but that’s a lot of organizations that are behind the delay, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a delay either.
What do you think? Should there be a delay or will that just be kicking the can down the road and healthcare organizations should be ready to share this data?
UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that Micky Tripathi, National Coordinator for Health IT at ONC, sent this tweet out last night:
In 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act called for sharing “all electronically accessible information” with other authorized users.
In ten days – on Oct 6 – full electronic health information (EHI) rqmt finally goes into effect.
And the next chapter begins!https://t.co/XYt4zrKOU2
— Micky Tripathi (@mickytripathi1) September 26, 2022
Not that it’s not possible that things could change, but this seems like a pretty solid indication that his intent is for this to move forward with no delay. Pair that with this tweet he sent last week and I think the date for compliance is likely not going to be postponed. However, like I said, trying to predict government is not my skill.
