The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) yesterday clarified that a 1988 law setting up national quality standards for medical testing labs does permit the labs to electronically exchange test data, an essential feature of the administration’s health IT adoption plan.
In issuing guidelines on the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), CMS aimed to clear up confusion about the impact of the law on fledgling health information exchanges and networks.
“We have the concern that the interpretation of CLIA has sometimes stood in the way of easy info exchange,” said Dr. David Blumenthal in remarks made yesterday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference in Atlanta.
In some cases, for instance, providers said they believed the law permitted only physicians who ordered a test to receive the results, according to hearings conducted last year by a panel of the Health IT Policy Committee, which advises Blumenthal.
In its revised guidance, CMS said lab results could be sent to the ordering physician as well as others designated by the physician. That includes providing patients access to their lab data unless a state specifically prohibits it, CMS said.
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