Rule to align privacy regulations on its way

An omnibus rule to align Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy regulations with more-stringent privacy protections contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 could be released soon.

The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, the chief federal healthcare privacy- and security-law enforcer and rule writer, has submitted "Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement and Breach Notification Rules" as a final rule the to the White House Office of Management and Budget, according to a posting on the OMB's website. Typically, OMB review is the last step in the federal rulemaking process before official publication of the rule. The HIPAA omnibus rule will contain, essentially, regulations covering most of what is in the stimulus law, except the rule regarding the accounting of health information disclosures, which is on a separate rule-making track, according to Deven McGraw, a lawyer and the head of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington think tank.