Additional concerns are that these bills would treat various types of health information differently and make it impossible to maintain uniformly high standards for the management of records. Currently, each state has different laws and rules for maintaining health information confidentiality. Some states have none. One of the goals in the effort to develop federal confidentiality laws or rules is to create a single national standard that establishes a high level of protection for everyone, Kloss reasoned, These bills fall short of that goal. In addition to the preemption issue, provisions in S. 573 and H.R. 1057 codifying different levels or methods of protection for various kinds of patient information are problematic, Kloss said.
All health information is important and deserves equal protection.
Treating mental health information, genetic information, and other health information differently would add to the confusion and increases the potential for errors. It also incorrectly implies that one type of health information is more important than another, Kloss said. HIM professionals know that waving a red flag over certain portions of a record in the name of protection may have the opposite effect. People are curious by nature and may be drawn to a record s flagged portions. The premise of this provision is a fallacy.