PEPC was pleased to sign an August 18 letter addressed to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, joining twenty-seven other stakeholder groups in asking HHS for more clarity and flexibility on how best to implement federal information blocking regulations set to go into effect October 6.
We are increasingly concerned about the complexity as well as the lack of a clear and consistent understanding of the information blocking regulations across the community, and urge the agency to address significant knowledge gaps with respect to implementation and enforcement. In particular, many independent, small, rural, and solo medical practices are still unaware or underinformed about information blocking requirements. We hope to ensure that HHS fosters an environment of collaboration and education for information blocking, rather than one of enforcement.
To deliver more specific guidance that helps instill a culture of information sharing, we recommend HHS take the following steps:
- Define the foundational concepts behind information sharing;
- Create use case/scenario-based FAQs to augment current guidance;
- Provide deeper technical assistance to support information blocking compliance efforts; and
- Bolster the communication vehicles for releasing the enhanced guidance.
To read the full letter, click here.