Report Title:

HCFA; Intrusive Home Health Agency Regulations

WHEREAS, because home health agency patients desire a high quality of health care, the health care provided by the home health agencies needs to be examined in order to ascertain whether improvements are necessary, and to determine what aspects to improve; and

WHEREAS, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 created a new Medicare payment system to improve the existing payment system, and must be in place by October 2000. The Health Care Financing Administration will require home health agencies to collect and report personal and medical information; and

WHEREAS, this sensitive personal information will be collected and used, without the consent of the patients, not only to create the new Medicare payment system, but also to improve quality of care and eliminate fraud; and

WHEREAS, home health agencies participating in Medicare and Medicaid are required to begin collecting patients information on July 19, 1999, and data transmission from the states to the Health Care Financing Administration commenced on August 25, 1999; and

WHEREAS, the Outcome and Assessment Information Set survey is the nineteen-page conduit required by the Health Care Financing Administration for collecting a range of medical and personal questions from more than nine thousand Medicare certified home health care providers to complete in order to assess more than 4,000,000 patients; and

WHEREAS, patients who receive federal benefits must disclose personal information including physical, mental, and functional information; patients’ medical history; living arrangements; sensory status; medications; and emotional status through behavioral and psychological profiles. Home health care patients who do not collect federal benefits must disclose personal information similar to but on a scaled back version of the Outcome and Assessment Information Set survey; and

WHEREAS, the American Civil Liberties Union asserts that the database will be used to perform outcomes research on home care patients; and

WHEREAS, the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned with the Health Care Financing Administration's collection of data because it cannot justify overriding the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the requirements of medical ethics, and the federal regulations on research involving human subjects, which assert that any research using fully-identified information requires fully-informed consent; and

WHEREAS, the Health Care Financing Administration is unwilling to allow patients to opt out of this data collection system; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, that the United States Congress is urged to block efforts of the Health Care Financing Administration’s intrusive regulations and work to protect personal liberty and privacy of every American; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governors of each state in the United States, each member of the United States House of Representatives, and each member of the United States Senate.