Emma Schwartz of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund writes:
The tug-of-war over a little-known federal privacy rule–which has drawn in Congress, regulators and an array of interest groups–highlights the behind-the-scenes activity touched off by the government’s effort to spend some $45 billion in economic stimulus funds to push medical data online. Federal regulators are working against tight deadlines to write all kinds of rules governing the digital system, one that the Obama administration hopes most health care providers will adopt in the next five years.
As with many Washington initiatives, the way the rules are written may have more of an effect on consumers than the original law passed by Congress.
One of the most contentious questions so far is when–and how–health care providers will have to notify patients if their privacy is breached.
Read more on the Huffington Post.
How many bites at the apple does the health care industry get? After having failed to convince Congress to incorporate a harm standard, they now get HHS to incorporate that which Congress expressly rejected — and at the expense of consumer protections. This is really outrageous.