Democrats urge HHS to enforce medical privacy rules

House and Senate Democrats sent a letter Tuesday to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson asking him to implement the Clinton administration's medical information privacy regulations on their original enactment date of April 14.

Thompson has put the regulations on hold for a 30-day comment period to get more advice from health care providers and others who would be affected, but Democrats said they were concerned this would kill the regulation.

"This is the first time I've seen a piano tuned with a sledgehammer. They want to kill it," Senate Judiciary ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said at a news conference.

The regulation requires providers to better safeguard the privacy of patients' medical records and requires permission for them to be given to third parties in many cases.

The Clinton administration moved forward with the rules because, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Congress gave itself a deadline to enact a law and failed to do so.

"Let's not forget we're having this debate because Congress failed to act," House Energy and Commerce ranking member John Dingell, D- Mich., noted.

Providers had urged Thompson to take another look at the regulations because they would "go too far" and create "more barriers in the exchange and dissemination of health care information," according to the American Association of Health Plans.

Healthcare Leadership Council President Mary Grealy, who will soon recommend that HHS slow the implementation date, said, "Protecting quality health care and patient safety is much more important than rushing ahead with the current version and getting it wrong."

Noting that the regulations are not without their potential problems, Democrats pointed out that HHS authorized a section in HIPAA to allow it to work with providers and consumers on a case-by-case basis.

"However, this process cannot begin until the covered entities move forward with implementing the rule," the letter said.