Do You Have THIS Required Cures Act Written Policy?
Learn how to comply with the Cures Act for records requests by creating a written policy that covers 6 key factors. Watch the video for valuable insights and ensure your practice remains compliant.
Additional information regarding the Cures Act:
Avoiding Information Blocking: A How-To Guide To Sharing Health Information Properly
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ICS Articles and Videos on the Cures Act
Here are the 6 factors:
- The type of EHI and the purposes for which it may be needed;
- The cost to the actor of complying with the request in the manner requested;
- The financial and technical resources available to the actor;
- Whether the actor’s practice is non-discriminatory and the actor provides the same access, exchange, or use of EHI to its companies or to its customers, suppliers, partners, and other persons with whom it has a business relationship;
- Whether the actor owns or has control over a predominant technology, platform, health information exchange, or health information network through which electronic health information is accessed or exchanged; and
- Why the actor was unable to provide access, exchange, or use of EHI consistent with the Content and Manner Exception in § 171.301.6
Remember that if you choose to use infeasibility, then you must respond in writing within 10 business days of receiving the request.
Transcription:
As we discussed a couple of weeks ago and last week in regard to the Cures Act when a patient is making an electronic health records request now that that whole suite of information that you keep electronically is now included in the data set that you’re required to give the patient. That’s everything right. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago, last week, we talked about, okay, what happens when you do get the request and you’re unable to do it, because you’re not utilizing certified software, of course, you have to go through the negotiation steps. But the last thing, once you have gone through all of that negotiation with the individual patient, this is really important on a case-by-case basis. After that, then you could potentially implement and or claim the infeasibility under the circumstances except exception to the Cures Act. And so, a lot of the software vendors that aren’t certified are telling you Oh, just tell them that it’s not possible. And you can get away, no, you still have to go through all of the steps with each request, or each patient that makes a request like that. That’s an important thing to remember.
Now, this is what it comes down to, however, you can’t just say I can’t do it, you actually have to have a written policy. So, the law and the rules require that you have a written policy that addresses six separate factors that you have to have taken into consideration. I’ll list those down below just so you have them handy. But here’s what they really are, incidentally, you have to address those in the written policy. So, we suggest actually, that you include them specifically in the policy to clearly demonstrate that you did that you did take each one of those factors into consideration when you wrote the policy.
So, here’s what they are one, the type of electronic health information and the purposes for which it may be needed. So, you kind of have to look at your entire suite of electronic health information and include that down below. Now, this also means that you have to adjust this policy if you make a shift later. So right now, if you’re doing everything on handwritten documents or calendar or whatever for your, for your appointments, you want to make sure if you move that to electronic that you have to address that in this policy as well. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is the cost to you of complying with the request in the manner except Request ID. So, you want to address it and hey this isn’t really feasible. There’s only I think, as of today, I believe there’s only two actually Cures Act-certified chiropractic-centered software systems out there right now. So, you know, maybe it’s cost prohibitive for you to make that change, you have to actually address that in your policy. The third is the financial and technical resources available to you. So, you have to address that in the policy as well. In other words, you have to indicate that there is no actual true way for you to be able, to make an adjustment in your practice to be able to meet the needs of the patient. And it’s not saying that you can’t, it’s just saying you have to address these issues inside the policy. And if you ignore any one of these in the policy probably isn’t going to be good enough, you want to make sure you address all of the factors, right, you want to address whether or not your practice is non-discriminatory. And that you provide the same access exchange or use of the EHI of the electronic health information to your customers, customers, suppliers, partners, and most importantly, your patients, right. So, you have to address non-discrimination in your policy, you also then have to address whether or not you own or have control over technology platform and Health Information Exchange or health information network through which the information could be exchanged. So, you just have to address that you’re not going to you don’t have a certified system, address that in the policy. And then lastly, why you’re unable to provide the access or exchange, or use of the electronic health information consistent with the content and manner session. This last thing is really important, you want to make sure that you address all of that inside the policy.
Once your policy is written, here’s what you have to remember, you still have to. You must still respond to the patient in a window of 10 days as to why you can’t. And your response really should include the information that we just covered that’s already inside your policy. So don’t just sit back and think, no big deal. I don’t have a certified system; I can’t do it. I can tell the patients I can’t do it. You want to make sure that you have all of your I’s dotted and Ts crossed. It’s another reason why we all should be asking our electronic health records companies if they’re going to step up and begin the process of true certification of Cures Act certification, and that really is important. It’s going to be important for our future. There are 683 different EHR systems out there that are 2015 Cures Act certified, which is the latest certification level, only two are chiropractic centric. So, we want to make sure that we hold our EHR companies accountable and let them know that this is important. It’s important to the patients and it’s important to the profession. It’s important to you and your practice. We’ll catch you next week.
