Health Information Compliance Alert

Health Care Philanthropy:

HEALTH CARE CHARITIES FEEL PRIVACY PRESSURE

Health care philanthropy groups are pressing the Bush administration to amend a portion of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule that many claim could hamper fundraising efforts.

According to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, non-profit medical fundraising groups have historically had access to a wide range of patients demographic information for use in making targeted appeals. However, under the proposed amendments to the privacy rule such groups would lose access to a crucial piece of data: patients department of service information.

"Without the PDS information," says AHP President and CEO William McGinly in remarks prepared for delivery to an April 16 Senate hearing on the proposed changes, "the Privacy Rule would force us to use a shotgun approach to fund raising, increasing costs and reducing the donated dollars available to serve community needs."

The Association of American Medical Colleges has also weighed in on the issue. In an April 11 letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, the association argued that restricting access to patients PDS data "creates a serious impediment to the fundraising that is essential for academic institutions to sustain their core missions of teaching, research, patient care and community service."

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