AHA, HIMSS Respond to Proposal on Patient Access to Lab Reports

On Monday, the American Hospital Association submitted comments to HHS responding to a proposed rule that aims to improve patient access to  laboratory testing results, AHA News reports. AHA publishes AHA  News.

AHA said the proposed rule would remove barriers to health information  sharing and help patients play a more active role in their care. However, the  association noted that the proposed rule could create significant operational  challenges for hospital labs, particularly those that provide reference testing  for external health care providers.

AHA recommended that the final rule include language allowing labs to  deny patient requests for test reports if a lab’s authentication process cannot  ensure that a test result belongs to a particular individual.

AHA also suggested that regulatory agencies work to inform patients that the  proposed rule would give them access to a complete test report but that  interpretation of the results still would be left to a physician (AHA  News, 11/14).

HIMSS’ Comments

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society also submitted comments to HHS about the proposed rule.

In the letter, HIMSS officials recommended that federal officials consider  how the patient access requirements would create new costs for labs.

HIMSS also called for federal officials to provide guidance to help labs  determine the appropriate authentication measures needed to verify patient  identity.

In addition, HIMSS recommended that HHS align the final rule with new HIPAA  requirements mandated under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package  (Underwood/Lieber, HIMSS letter, 11/11).

Source: iHealthBeat

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