Health IT, Policy

Proposed rule change would lift HIPAA barrier to more mental health data for gun permits

About a year after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings , dissatisfaction with the relatively […]

About a year after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings , dissatisfaction with the relatively low number of mental health records submitted as part of  background checks on gun applicants has led the Obama administration to propose a change in the HIPAA law. The change is intended to encourage states to provide more mental health data for gun background checks and is being published in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services tomorrow. There’s a 90-day window for comments.

A Health Data Management article said the rule change would amend the HIPAA privacy law “to expressly permit certain HIPAA covered entities to disclose to the National Instant Criminal Background System the identities of individuals who are subject to a federal ‘mental health prohibitor.’ Among the factors the National Instant Criminal Background Check System uses to prevent people from buying guns are people diagnosed with severe mental health disorders or ruled mentally incompetent. They are disqualified from shipping, transporting, possessing or receiving a firearm.

The rule change only goes so far as to permit state officials to submit the information, but it does not require them to do it.

A 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office said that 17 states have submitted less than 10 records of individuals prohibited from owning a gun for mental health reasons.

The topic of electronic medical records has been a controversial one for some psychiatrists who worry about violation of patient-doctor confidentiality. Some who keep electronic medical records opt to separate patients’ information from their own notes relating to their patients’ mental health.

The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School left 26 people dead, including 20 children. Although the shooter did not purchase the guns himself, the tragedy reawakened the debate over increasing gun control, background checks and behavioral health that began in earnest after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.

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