HHS Proposes Allowing Cybersecurity Donations to Doctors

Reacting to the proposal, privacy and security attorney Stephen Wu of the law firm Silicon Valley Law Group notes: “In the short run, anything that can help doctors improve their cybersecurity is good. However, in the long run, you don’t want doctors to be overly dependent on hospitals for their cybersecurity.”

In a statement Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services said its two proposed rules - one issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the other by HHS Office of Inspector General - aim to “modernize and clarify the regulations that interpret the Physician Self-Referral Law - the ‘Stark Law’ - and the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute.”

Portraying the proposals as a way to help improve patient care coordination by ensuring secure health information exchange, HHS says the two rules would “provide greater certainty for healthcare providers participating in value-based arrangements and providing coordinated care for patients. The proposals would ease the compliance burden for healthcare providers across the industry, while maintaining strong safeguards to protect patients and programs from fraud and abuse.”

The proposals are part of what HHS calls its “regulatory sprint to coordinated care,” designed to “promote value-based care by examining federal regulations that impede efforts among providers to better coordinate care for patients.”