[Med-privacy] Stark bill

[peter marshall]

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  STARK INTRODUCES HEALTH IT BILL
  [SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
  House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark (D-CA) 
has introduced legislation aimed at overhauling the US healthcare 
system through advances in technology. The bill would codify the Office 
of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within 
the Health and Human Services Department; create a more transparent 
process for the development of health IT standards by the end of 2009; 
establish a voluntary certification process for health IT products; 
provide immediate funding for health IT infrastructure, training, 
dissemination of best practices, telemedicine, inclusion of health 
technology in clinical education, and state grants to promote the use 
of electronic medical records; provide financial incentives through the 
Medicare and Medicaid programs to encourage doctors and hospitals to 
adopt and use certified e-health systems; establish a federal breach 
notification requirement for health IT and would let patients request 
an audit trail showing all disclosures of their health information made 
through an electronic record; change existing laws to include new 
entities that were not contemplated when federal privacy rules were 
written as well as entities that do work on behalf of providers and 
insurers; ban the sale of an individual's health information without 
their authorization; and would require providers to attain 
authorization from a patient in order to use their health IT for 
marketing and fundraising activities. Physicians would be eligible for 
as much as $65,000 for showing they are meaningfully using health IT 
and hospitals would be eligible for several million dollars. Incentive 
payments would continue for several years but would be phased out over 
time.
http://benton.org/node/20990
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<fontfamily><param>Verdana</param><smaller> STARK INTRODUCES HEALTH IT
BILL

 [SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]

 House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark (D-CA)
has introduced legislation aimed at overhauling the US healthcare
system through advances in technology. The bill would codify the
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
within the Health and Human Services Department; create a more
transparent process for the development of health IT standards by the
end of 2009; establish a voluntary certification process for health IT
products; provide immediate funding for health IT infrastructure,
training, dissemination of best practices, telemedicine, inclusion of
health technology in clinical education, and state grants to promote
the use of electronic medical records; provide financial incentives
through the Medicare and Medicaid programs to encourage doctors and
hospitals to adopt and use certified e-health systems; establish a
federal breach notification requirement for health IT and would let
patients request an audit trail showing all disclosures of their
health information made through an electronic record; change existing
laws to include new entities that were not contemplated when federal
privacy rules were written as well as entities that do work on behalf
of providers and insurers; ban the sale of an individual's health
information without their authorization; and would require providers
to attain authorization from a patient in order to use their health IT
for marketing and fundraising activities. Physicians would be eligible
for as much as $65,000 for showing they are meaningfully using health
IT and hospitals would be eligible for several million dollars.
Incentive payments would continue for several years but would be
phased out over time.

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