Policy, Expectations and History: Accounting of Disclosures, Patient Expectations, and What We Can Learn from the Early Days of the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act

The proposed Accounting of Disclosure rule seeks to give patients/consumers clear rights to receive an accounting of the disclosures of their medical information. Similar to the rights regarding disclosures of credit information first given to consumers in the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act, the rights for an Accounting of Disclosure seeks to make disclosures of medical information more transparent. After the Department of Health and Human Services Accounting of Disclosure rule proposal of rulemaking in 2010 (Proposed Rule: HIPAA Privacy Rule Accounting of Disclosures under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, 76 Fed. Reg. 31426-31449 (May 31, 2011; RIN 0991–AB62), over 400 public comments were received (Public Comment on Proposed Rule: HIPAA Privacy Rule Accounting of Disclosures under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, (August 1, 2011), available at: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=HHS-OCR-2011-0011-0001 ). While some comments supported the rule and advocated further rights and protections for consumers, many providers and representatives of provider organizations voiced significant criticisms and offered serious challenges to the proposed rule (e.g., Hall and Nissenbaum 2011). Additional hearings on the subject further identified provider concerns regarding the proposed rule.