Health & Human Services Dept. Amend Rule – Allow Easier Access for Patients
February 11th, 2014; Posted by: WeBleed staff
Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have amended the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) regulations to allow patients access to their lab test reports directly from the lab.
Until now, because of the Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) when labs tests were ordered by health providers and sent to a laboratory, patients had to wait until the results were returned to the health provider to get their results.
This update to CLIA and HIPAA mean that patients can now request that the lab provide results directly to them AND their health provider. This is great news for patients that know how to decipher lab test results or patients that will receive a positive or negative response from their lab work.
To read the summary from the Federal Register, please click here.
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