On August 22 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in one of the biggest rulemakings undertaken in recent history, announced proposed changes to 42 CFR Part 2, the regulation which protects confidentiality for patients treatment in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment programs, including methadone.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for each of the two proposals is in the August 26 Federal Register.
The proposed changes are sweeping. They will soon be opened to comment periods of 60 days regarding the general changes to patient privacy, and 30 days regarding law enforcement’s increased powers to seize patients’ records under the proposal.
The battle now goes to the states. Under the proposal, if states allow OTPs to put this information into PDMPs, SAMHSA will allow it. Federal law and regulations supersede states, so until now, that 2011 “Dear Colleague” guidance letter—written by privacy champion H. Westley Clark MD, JD, then director of SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment—has been the law of the land.
For the NPRMs, go to:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-08-26/pdf/2019-17816.pdf
(Deadline for submitting public comments: by 5 pm on September 25, 2019.)
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-08-26/pdf/2019-17817.pdf
(Deadline for submitting public comments: by 5 pm on October 25, 2019.
Source: Filter
Read more at: https://filtermag.org/samhsa-addiction-confidentiality/
