Health information, the HIPAA privacy rule, and health care: what do physicians think?

This study examines physicians' attitudes toward key Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule requirements and assesses the effects of their implementation. We found that despite physicians' generally negative views toward the Privacy Rule, they rated organizations implementing more rule requirements better at protecting the privacy of patient records to provide high-quality care than organizations that have not implemented the requirements. Most importantly, the physicians gave the organizations that are meeting more Privacy Rule requirements higher ratings in terms of one key area of concern: physicians' ability to interact with colleagues to provide high-quality care. The policy implications corroborate with findings from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) that the Privacy Rule implementation has not hindered the provision of health care. In view of these results, it is time to move forward with the development of reliable indicators of the effects of compliance on quality of care, conduct of medical research, and practitioners' work patterns.