A Year in Review: Physician Perspectives on Information Blocking Regulations (AMA Reprint) April 27, 2022 General information blocking 0 A Year in Review: Physician Perspectives on Information Blocking Regulations (Reprinted from the American Medical Association-AMA) Over a year has passed since the Information Blocking compliance date (April 5, 2021). Several critical components necessary for physicians to fully comply with the regulations are still missing. These include a final set of regulations from The US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) and HHS policies on provider Actor disincentives. Yet, all Actors subject to HHS’ Information Blocking regulations (i.e., providers, EHR vendors, and health information exchanges), have been required to comply since April of last year. The AMA continues to engage with HHS and is pushing for more clarity and flexibility on a range of Information Blocking requirements. Still, EHR vendors are Actors under HHS regulations and therefore must not prevent the access, use, or exchange of electronic health information. Examples of EHR vendor information blocking include: A physician partnered with a third-party application developer to conduct data analytics that required access to EHR data. The physician and partner developer sought to make data access arrangements with an EHR vendor. The EHR vendor indicated access to patient data would be limited by number of patients per request and frequency of requests. A medical practice seeks to implement a third-party population health application. Their EHR vendor notes that it is only required to provide a limited amount of data. Access to additional data will require a customized EHR solution and will be subject to consulting fees. A patient seeks to access her entire medical record from their EHR patient portal. The request is made by the patient, however the EHR cannot support the request. The physician is targeted as an “information blocker”. The physician requests support from their EHR vendor who refuses unless additional fees are paid. In conjunction with Information Blocking regulations, EHR vendors: Cannot not block or charge excessive fees to connect physicians to clinical registries or health information exchanges. Must allow physicians to publicize concerns with EHR performance, costs, and patient safety. In general, cannot charge excessive fees and may only seek “reasonable profit”. Cannot use contracts, technical limitations, or fees to restrict physicians from migrating between EHR products. EHR vendors must provide support during a product migration. Must support application programing interfaces (APIs) and allow physicians to use applications created by non-EHR vendors. Cannot knowingly block physician access to patient medical records. The AMA is reaching out to better understand physicians’ experiences with Information Blocking compliance, issues physicians have encountered when requesting information from other Actors (e.g., their EHR vendors, state health information exchanges, or other providers or hospitals), and specific examples of EHR vendors preventing access to patient health information. We welcome any examples or anecdotes you wish to share. The AMA will compile, deidentify, and share your example stories with HHS officials and advocate for increased focus on information blocking practices that prevent or inhibit physician access to patient information. Please submit your example stories and answers to the following questions to Ela Cameron ela.cameron@ama-assn.org by May 16th. What are your top three concerns or challenges complying with HHS’ Information Blocking regulations? What are the top three issues you have experienced when requesting patients’ electronic health information from another Actor, e.g., your EHR vendor, local hospital, laboratory/pharmacy, or another medical practice? What are the top three features/functions you wish your EHR had to help you comply with HHS’ Information Blocking regulations? What other information blocking issues or experiences would you like us to share with HHS? Comments are closed.
