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Federal regulators consider rules required to stifle information blocking and promote interoperability.
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Financial penalties should be a last resort, not a first step, in dealing with medical practices that commit information blocking, according to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).
Jan. 2, 2024, marked the end of a public comment period on proposed rules to create “disincentives” for health care organizations that engage in information blocking. Federal regulators have published potential penalties that could result in hospitals and physician groups paying thousands of dollars, possibly into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Those are too harsh, MGMA Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Anders Gilberg said in a Jan. 2 letter to Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Micky Tripathi, PhD, the national coordinator for health information technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology must establish the disincentives per the 21st Century Cures Act. But MGMA has “significant concerns with the proposed rule and its impact on medical groups,” Gilberg said.
MGMA’s proposals include:
“Guidance and education would be invaluable not only to offending parties, but to prevent information blocking before it occurs,” Gilberg wrote.
“Given the intricacy of the information blocking regulations, coupled with competing privacy laws, and the interaction of electronic health record (EHR) vendors, instituting a fair appeals process is essential to ensuring providers are afforded proper due process considerations,” Gilberg wrote.