House Panel Approves Compromise Health IT Bill That Addresses Some Privacy Concerns
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday by voice vote approved a bill to establish privacy protections for electronic medical data and aim to “spur a shift” toward electronic records by giving loans and grants to health care providers, CQ Today reports.
The committee adopted substitute legislation to HR 6357 by Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) that reflects a bipartisan compromise, according to CQ Today (Armstrong/Nylen, CQ Today, 7/23). According to BNA Heath Care Daily, the compromise bill closes a number of existing regulatory loopholes in patient privacy and security rules and would provide patients with more options to control their health information (BNA Health Care Daily, 7/24).
The bill addresses some of the objections to earlier versions raised by some consumer, health care and high-tech groups (Noyes, CongressDaily, 7/23). Some advocates remain concerned that the bill does not go far enough to adequately protect patient privacy (BNA Health Care Daily, 7/24). “As part of the transition from paper to electronic health records, Congress should go for the gold standard of medical privacy,” Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement, adding, “Lawmakers must define medical privacy as patient control of medical records” (ACLU release, 7/23).
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), an ardent supporter of privacy, also said the changes were not enough. Dingell said he would continue to work with those lawmakers before the bill reaches the floor. Markey noted later that the word “privacy” is used 22 times in the bill but is never defined. He said a “straightforward, simple” definition of privacy could come from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, adding that a definition in the committee’s report on the bill would not be enough (Noyes, CongressDaily, 7/23).
During the mark up, the committee did adopt several amendments, including a provision by Markey that would require the HHS secretary to create a model of an informed-consent agreement for patients that is easily understandable (Armstrong/Nylen, CQ Today, 7/23) Markey, who has introduced his own bill on the issue, also proposed, and later withdrew, an amendment that would have alerted patients when their information was sent to processing firms in other countries with weaker privacy laws (CongressDaily, 7/23).
The committee also had a “heated exchange” over a proposed amendment by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) that would allow health providers to share patient information within their own offices for business purposes without obtaining explicit consent from patients. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking member on the committee, said, “If you’re going to use internal information and send it to the accounting department or the billing department, you don’t have to keep a log of that because it’s a routine business transaction.” Dingell agreed to work on language on the?issue before the bill is sent to the floor, prompting Rogers to withdraw the amendment (Hunt, CongressDaily, 7/23).
According to CQ Today, the House Ways and Means Committee also shares jurisdiction on the bill. A Senate health IT bill (S 1693) also is pending action (CQ Today, 7/23).
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