SAMHSA: Patient consent now required for substance abuse records
Briefings on Accreditation and Quality, July 1, 2018
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Briefings on Accreditation and Quality.
Appropriate sharing of records for patients with substance abuse disorders should be easier under a second final rule issued January 3 by HHS and its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). But in some cases, the new rule adds considerations that might mitigate the advantage.
Rules for handling patient records that include information on the patient’s substance use diagnoses or services (often called “Part 2” records after CFR Title 42: Part 2, the relevant regulation) go beyond HIPAA standards. Previously, for example, providers handling such records had to get specific patient consent every time such records changed hands, including otherwise HIPAA-compliant transfers that took place after the provider made authorized release of them—in other words, if the provider handed the records off to a hospital, another named consent would be required for the hospital to send them to a lab.
Latest rule clarifies consent path
The January 3 final rule, which went into effect February 2, clarifies a proposed and a final rule from January 2017 about letting providers and patients arrange consent that allowed appropriate downstream parties to handle the records, and allowed patients to specify what portions of their substance records they will authorize for release and what categories of downstream handlers they will allow to have those records.
This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Briefings on Accreditation and Quality.
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- Complications from immobility by body system
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Skills of effective case managers
- Prevent dehydration with nursing interventions
- E-mailed
-
- Correctly bill ancillary bedside procedures in addition to the room rate
- Coding, billing, and documentation tips for teaching physicians, interns, residents, and students
- Coding tip: Watch for different codes for SI joint injections
- Q/A: Coding infusions to correct low potassium levels
- Q&A: Utilization Review Committee Membership
- Q&A: Bill blood administration the same way for inpatient and outpatient accounts
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Know the medical gas cylinder storage requirements
- Intravenous therapy guidelines
- ICD-10-CM coma, stroke codes require more specific documentation
- Searched