Weekend update

The House and Senate continue their work on Capitol Hill this week as the curtain begins to fall on the 115th Congress. Here's a link to the Week in Congress's report on last week's actions here.

The continuing resolution funding several federal agencies, including OPM, runs out on December 21. Federal New Network offers various outcomes here.  The FEHBlog expects that the continuing resolution will be extended into the next Congress.

Last week, the Health and Human Services Department's Office for Civil Rights, which enforces the HIPAA privacy and security rules, issued an interesting request for information.

We are looking for candid feedback about how the existing HIPAA regulations are working in the real world and how we can improve them,” said OCR Director Roger Severino. “We are committed to pursuing the changes needed to improve quality of care and eliminate undue burdens on covered entities while maintaining robust privacy and security protections for individuals’ health information.”

In addition to requesting broad input on the HIPAA Rules, the RFI also seeks comments on specific areas of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, including:

•     Encouraging information-sharing for treatment and care coordination
•     Facilitating parental involvement in care
•     Addressing the opioid crisis and serious mental illness
•     Accounting for disclosures of PHI for treatment, payment, and health care operations as required by the HITECH Act
•     Changing the current requirement for certain providers to make a good faith effort to obtain an acknowledgment of receipt of the Notice of Privacy Practices

Public comments on the RFI will be due by February 11, 2019. 

Healthcare Dive reminds us that the antitrust lawsuit against the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association continues to grind on in the courts six years after the complaint was filed.

Following up on Friday's post, the FEHBlog's mind was blown because he expected that the federal judge in Texas which would follow the recommendation of the U.S. Justice Department and strike down the individual mandate and two closely related provisions as unconstitutional, not the entire law.  That's likely where the case will wind up after appellate court review and the Trump Administration has a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions should that outcome be upheld by the Supreme Court.