21st Century Cures Act: No Information Blocking

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Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons is committed to making Electronic Health Information (EHI) available and for use that is authorized and permitted in accordance with applicable law. Our “No Information Blocking Policy” focuses on giving patients access to their EHI without creating unnecessary barriers. This Policy also helps deter the information blocking faced by healthcare providers when attempting to provide continuity of care for patients. Finally, our policy recognizes the eight (8) exceptions under the 21st Century Cures Act that identify reasonable and necessary practices and activities that do not constitute information blocking. Your Provider and/or Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons may, where allowed by law, interfere with access to EHI under the following (8) exceptions: Five (5) exceptions that allow us to not fulfill requests to access, exchange, or use EHI:

1. 1. Preventing harm exception: taking actions that are reasonable and necessary to prevent harm to a patient or another person, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR § 171.201).
   2. Privacy exception: not fulfilling a request to access, exchange, or use EHI to protect an individual’s privacy, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR § 171.202).
   3. Security exception: interfering with the access, exchange, or use of EHI to protect the security of EHI, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR § 171.203).
   4. Infeasibility exception not fulfilling a request to access, exchange, or use EHI due to the infeasibility of the request, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR § 171.204).
   5. Health IT performance exception: taking reasonable and necessary measures to make health IT temporarily unavailable or to degrade the health IT’s performance for the benefit of the overall performance of the health IT, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR § 171.205).

Three (3) exceptions involve procedures for fulfilling requests to access, exchange, or use EHI:

1. 1. Content and manner exception fulfilling a request to access, exchange, or use EHI in any manner requested or in an alternative manner, provided certain conditions are met, using (i) certified health IT specified by the requestor; (ii) content and transport standards specified by the requestor and published by the federal government or a standards-developing organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute; or (iii) an alternative machine-readable format, including the means to interpret the EHI, agreed upon with the requestor (45 CFR §171.301).
   2. Fees exception: charging fees, including fees that result in a reasonable profit margin, for accessing, exchanging, or using EHI, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR §171.302).
   3. Licensing exception: licensing interoperability elements for EHI to be accessed, exchanged, or used, provided certain conditions are met (45 CFR §171.303).

For more information on the 21st Century Cures Act: No Information Blocking Rules, please visit https://www.healthit.gov/curesrule/final-rule-policy/information-blocking