PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6, SUBSTANCE USE-DISORDER PREVENTION THAT PROMOTES OPIOID RECOVERY AND TREATMENT FOR PATIENTS AND COMMUNITIES ACT; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5797...
Ryan A. Costello (Republican, PA) \u2014 2018-6-20

I rise in support of the rule. I want to speak specifically on my support for H.R. 6082, which allows for the flow of information among healthcare providers and health plans that is necessary to foster care coordination, provide proper treatment, promote patient safety, make payment, and, ultimately, improve the individual's health status. prgtoken Without alignment for treatment, payment, and operations, the following could not happen without an authorization: Coordinating care across behavioral and medical services. Case management to provide longer-term support after a patient ends treatment. Ensuring appropriate administrative and financial interaction between providers and plans, which support the core functions of treatment and payment for HIPAA-covered entities. Also conducting quality assessment and improvement activities to better integrate behavioral and medical services. This includes, , evaluating provider performance, conducting training programs, and accreditation, certification, and credentialing activities. prgtoken People with substance use disorder die, on average, decades sooner than other Americans. This is largely because of a strikingly high incidence of poorly-managed, co-occurring chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, cardiac conditions, lung disease, and cirrhosis. prgtoken Whatever we, as a Nation, are doing to coordinate care for this highly vulnerable patient population is utterly failing by any reasonable measure. prgtoken An extraordinary array of organizations, hospitals, physicians, patient advocates, and substance use treatment providers have approached our committee to clearly state that existing Federal addiction privacy law--and that is what H.R. 6082 is focused on, existing privacy law--is actively interfering with case management/care coordination efforts, and preserving a failed and deadly status quo. prgtoken Blocking certain substance use providers from accessing health records from these exchanges, which the part 2 regulations do, isolates patients in these programs from powerful exchanges of health information and from the protections of HIPAA and HITECH regulations governing these exchanges. prgtoken , treating patients' substance use in isolation from their medical and mental conditions, which predominated care in the 1970s, is not the current standard of good medical practice today. prgtoken There is overwhelming evidence now that patients' substance use cannot be treated in isolation from other physical and mental health conditions. In the 1970s, when part 2 was written, this was not widely known, and treatment for addiction was largely separate from treatment of other illnesses. prgtoken By continuing to segregate substance use disorder records for any treatment setting means that you are willing to allow those patients to receive care that is lower quality at a higher cost. Medically-ill inpatients who have alcohol or drug disorders are at greatly increased