Last week, the federales published a draft rule that would remove the lab-result-specific ban on delivering results directly to the patient (this applies to freestanding labs only – hospital lab results, for example are already covered by HIPAA patient access requirements).  See: Federal Register | CLIA Program and HIPAA Privacy Rule; Patients’ Access to Test Reports – http://bit.ly/qVi4dC

Some of the physician commentariat have already come out against this proposal, saying patients lack the context/knowledge with which to interpret results, and may mistakenly (a) ignore a result that may warrant some worry – and followup, or (b) worry unnecessarily about a benign result.

Please reply to me privately if you are interested in working with me to craft the Society’s comment letter, which is due in mid-November.

— David

David C. Harlow ∙ Principal