On June 25, a New Hampshire RN filed a civil suit against three officials of the Obama Administration alleging the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) health IT provisions violate HIPAA privacy provisions. The nurse, Beatrice Heghmann, is represented by her husband, an attorney.
Defendants named in the complaint filed June 25 are Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform; and Charlene Frizzera, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Heghmann complains that the White House Office of Health Reform is “in the process of designing a new system for delivering medical care to every person in the United States and HHS is in the process of implementing the new system.”
The law also mandates, the suit alleges, that every provider acquire and implement health information technology to create an electronic health record for every person in the nation by 2014. This is actually a goal set by the Bush Administration in 2004. The suit casts doubt on the ability of any electronic health record system to protect patient privacy. Heghmann filed as a potential patient whose privacy may someday be at risk.
Because HHS is empowered to define “minimum necessary” disclosure of information and to issue guidance on how best to implement the requirements for de-identification of protected health information, the suit claims the Secretary of HHS has been given the power to weaken HIPAA privacy provisions.
The suit also foresees that the federal government will use patient information inappropriately, even unconstitutionally. The $20 billion for Health IT and another $2 billion for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology “will be used to deprive the Plaintiff and others of her fundamental right to privacy by requiring that her medical records be released by her health care providers and upon entry into the Health Information Technology maintained under the supervision of the Secretary will be made available without the permission of the Plaintiff to an unknown and potentially unlimited number of persons.”
According to the suit, Heghmann also believes the White House Office of Health Reform will “monitor, interfere and limit the medical information and medical options provided by the Plaintiff’s health care providers.”
“Heghmann et al v. Sebelius et al” was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and assigned to Judge Barbara Jones. The case number is 09-CV-5880.
