On April 26, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights issued a final privacy rule to support reproductive health privacy.
Reproductive health care means health care that affects the health of an individual in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. The Privacy Rule includes permitted, required and prohibited uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI). The heart of the amendments is a prohibition on the use or disclosure of PHI (verbal or written) for purposes of investigating or imposing liability on a person for seeking, obtaining, providing or facilitating reproductive health care.
The rule does not allow the sharing of reproductive health information if it is for a prohibited purpose defined as:
A signed attestation must be received from the requestor if the covered entity (Salem Health) or business associate reasonably believes specific conditions apply regarding reproductive health care. The list below identifies the entities in which a signed attestation must be received prior to the release of medical records:
Questions? Contact Holly Brown, Health Information Management Operations Manager, at 503-814-2732 or Holly.Brown@salemhealth.org.
Direct all Release of Information (ROI) requests to Health Information Management:
The attestation form is titled “Reproductive Health Attestation – SH, DSC #457273” and can also be found here, scroll down to the “Helpful Links” section.
The compliance date for the attestation provision of the rule is Monday, Dec. 23.