The Trump Administration – which has made fighting the opioid epidemic a key part of its healthcare platform – has unveiled a new proposed policy change that would make it easier for doctors to access addiction information about patients.
The HHS proposal would amend a rule known as 42 CFR Part 2 to allow clinicians to access substance abuse disorder records by reclassifying certain information under the law and how the rule is applied, with the goal of improving care coordination around substance use disorder.
Officials pointed to the example of a physician prescribing opioid pain treatments to a patient with a history of substance abuse because of a lack of knowledge about that aspect of their medical history.
“Not having that information can literally be deadly,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said on a conference call with reporters.
42 CFR Part 2 was initially put into effect more than 40 years ago to protect sensitive patient records around substance abuse issues. However, Trump officials argue that the regulation has not kept up with the times and the necessity of coordinated approaches to addressing the opioid epidemic.
“The lack of critical substance use history in a patient’s medical record can lead to potentially damaging consequences for a person with a substance use disorder and can further stigmatize these conditions,” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Director Elinore McCance-Katz said in a statement.
“This rule aims to ease the sharing of information, reduce burden for providers, and increase access to care for individuals while at the same time maintaining important privacy controls.”
More specifically, the proposed policy changes would have a number of different effects including broadening the ability of substance abuse disorder patients to share their health records to specific entities, allowing non opioid treatment providers to search opioid treatment registries and creating less stringent requirements around “sanitization” of personal devices which may have sensitive information.
Officials say the proposed rule changes will lower the risk and regulatory burden for clinicians looking to share and effectively use substance abuse health records.
“President Trump has promised Americans a healthcare system that provides affordable, high-quality, patient-centric healthcare—a system that treats you like a person, not a number. But outdated regulations have often stood in the way of delivering that kind of care, and our proposed reforms to 42 CFR Part 2 aim to change that,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.
“These changes also reflect the high priority that the Trump Administration places on improving the quality and availability of behavioral healthcare, especially as we combat our nation’s crisis of opioid addiction and substance abuse.”
Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images
