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- New Additions to Federal Information Blocking Regulations Have Minor Impact on Pathologists
Starting October 6, 2022, the Information Blocking Regulation outlined in the Cures Act final regulation expands to all electronic health information (EHI) that all physicians, including pathologists, must comply with. The Information Blocking requirements originally went into effect on April 5, 2021, for a narrow definition of EHI. The October 2022 date expands the EHI definition subject to the Information Blocking requirements. Because the definitions within the regulation include all forms of electronic sharing of information, faxing pathology reports continues to be an acceptable practice.
The Information Blocking Regulation requires all physicians to make their office notes, final laboratory results, and other final diagnostic reports available to patients as soon as the physician’s office receives an electronic copy. However, most pathologists do not have to change the way they report, and they can continue to report finalized reports from the laboratory information system (LIS) to ordering systems—with reasonable turnaround time.
Nevertheless, the regulation continues to specify that pathologists should not delay the release of laboratory and pathology results until the ordering clinician’s review. There are case-by-case exceptions to this rule (such as to prevent harm to a patient), though there are no blanket exceptions. Physicians have no monetary penalties yet, but the regulatory rulemaking process in the future will determine those.
The CAP has a fact sheet available for pathologists on how to comply with this regulation.