Provider Obligations For Patient Portals Under The 21st Century Cures Act

Health Affairs May 16, 2022
Alexander Dworkowitz

When Congress prohibited “information blocking” under the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016, it made no reference to patient portals, the websites through which many health care providers share clinical information with their patients. Similarly, the word “portal” does not appear once in the 6,000-word information blocking regulation, issued by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in 2020. Such regulation defines information blocking to mean a practice that is likely to interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information, subject to some important limitations.

Yet, nearly two years after the ONC issued its rule, hospitals and other providers throughout the country have significantly changed the information available to patients in their portals...

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