Health Information Compliance Alert

Question: We haven’t seen any new updates on the 21st Century Cures Act compliance deadlines under the Biden administration. Have we missed them or are there any new extensions?

New Hampshire Subscriber

Answer: No. Despite industry organizations urging the feds to extend the implementation timeline, the first compliance date has not been altered for some standards and is fast approaching.

Refresher: In May 2020, the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) published a final rule in the Federal Register that followed through on long-promised changes to health IT, interoperability, and information blocking, mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act. That final rule carried a compliance due date of Nov. 2, 2020.

Next: In October 2020, ONC announced an extension in an effort to ease providers’ implementation burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. ONC “released an interim final rule with comment period that extends the compliance dates and timeframes necessary to meet certain requirements related to information blocking and Conditions and Maintenance of Certification (CoC/MoC) requirements,” an HHS release said of the interim final rule published in the Federal Register.

Now: According to ONC guidance, there are specific provisions with a start date of April 5. Those include compliance requirements for Condition of Certification (CoC) for information blocking, assurances, and application programming interfaces (APIs), guidance suggests.