2000 SESSION

00-2178

01/10

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 20

ANALYSIS

This house concurrent resolution urges Congress to stop the collection of certain kinds of information from patients in a home health care setting.

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00-2178

01/10

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand

Whereas, the quality of health care for home health agency patients is highly desired, the health care provided by the home health agency needs to be examined in order to ascertain whether improvements are necessary, and to determine what aspects to improve; and

Whereas, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 created a new Medicare payment system to improve the existing payment system, and must be in place by October 2000. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) will force home health care agencies to collect and report personal and medical information; and

Whereas, this sensitive personal information will be collected and used, without the consent of the patients, not only to create the new Medicare payment system, but also to improve quality of care, and eliminate fraud; and

Whereas, home health care agencies participating in Medicare and Medicaid are collecting patient information, and data transmission from the states to HCFA has commenced; and

Whereas, the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) survey is the 19-page conduit required by HCFA to collect a range of medical and personal questions from more than 9,000 Medicare certified home health care providers to complete in order to assess more than 4,000,000 patients; and

Whereas, patients who receive federal benefits must disclose personal information including physical, mental, and functional information: patients' medical history; living arrangements; sensory status; medications; and emotional status through behavioral and psychological profiles. Home health care patients who do not collect federal benefits must also disclose personal information in a scaled-back version of the OASIS survey; and

Whereas, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asserts that the database will be used to perform outcomes research on home-care patients; and

Whereas, the ACLU is concerned with HCFA's collection of data because it cannot justify overriding the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the requirements of medical ethics, and the federal regulations on research involving human subjects, which asserts that any research using fully identified information requires fully informed consent; and

Whereas, HCFA is unwilling to allow patients to opt out of this data collection system; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That due to HCFA's intrusion of government bureaucracy into private transactions that take place outside of a federal program into personal liberty and privacy, New Hampshire urges Congress to block HCFA's intrusive regulations, and to work to protect the personal liberty and privacy of every American; and

That copies of this resolution, signed by the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate, be forwarded by the house clerk to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to the President of the United States Senate, and to the governor of each state.

(Approved: April 27, 2000)