Proposed Privacy Rule Changes May Leave Substance-Abuse Patients Vulnerable

Edward Zacharias discussed the problems of exchanging patient information between substance-abuse treatment providers and general health providers, saying that current legal limitations on sharing “have been especially cumbersome for integrated healthcare-delivery systems that offer federally-regulated substance-abuse treatment programs. There is a clear disconnect between HIPAA and the federal substance-abuse treatment regulations in terms of the steps that must be taken to permissibly use and disclose health information under each regulatory scheme.”