HHS readies privacy regs

As legislators battle among themselves over medical records privacy legislation, the Department of Health and Human Services is quietly formulating its own regulations on the matter, Physician’s Compliance Hotline has learned. Sources within the agency say while everyone’s hoping Congress will take effective action on the matter, staff have already been assigned to hammer out preliminary rules governing privacy.

HHS isn’t saying much about its proposed regs yet, and probably won’t until the August 1999 deadline passes. "The problem is that if we take the initiative away from the Hill, then that creates a problem," says Jim Scanlon, a member of the HHS team working on the regulations. "I think everybody wants a law, but we’ll be prepared to issue [regulations] as needed."

In any case, HHS’ regulations probably won’t look too different from the three bills currently making the rounds in the Senate, says one source: "They won’t be the same as any one of the congressional bills, but there is much similarity among them."

One thing’s for sure, though: The HHS regulations won’t include any provision to override state privacy laws, such as those contained in the bills of Senators Bennett (R-UT) and Jeffords (R-VT). The agency simply doesn’t have the authority to do that.