Health Affairs June 8, 2020
This post describes the existing state of health privacy rules applicable to the medical records of substance use disorder (SUD) patients, the current COVID-19 emergency provisions that create exceptions to those rules, and the statutory changes contained in the CARES Act of 2020. The array of announcements of waivers and enforcement discretion detailed below that apply for the duration of the declared national emergency are relatively uncontroversial.
More surprising is that Congress has taken the opportunity to settle, without public debate and in a “must-pass” piece of legislation otherwise focused on COVID-19, a longstanding dispute about the value of special protections for the privacy of SUD patients in the context of existing health care industry practice. While some advocates for...
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