42 CFR Part 2 at risk during last days of lame‐duck session

Abstract

This week, while most people are on some kind of vacation, there could still be action taken in Congress to decimate 42 CFR Part 2, the regulation requiring treatment providers to obtain consent from substance use disorder (SUD) patients before releasing their records. For almost the past 10 years, this regulation has been under fire, because it makes things inconvenient for electronic health records (EHRs). And until last fall, the organizations that wanted to kill the regulation were bigger and stronger on a regular basis. But when Congress was on the verge of passing its bill that would have gutted the regulation, which is promulgated (and now opposed) by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a big fish waded into the pond: the American Medical Association (AMA). Saying what treatment providers like the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence have been saying for years, the AMA said in a letter to Congress that the regulation, in protecting patients, encouraged them to seek treatment, and that without that guarantee of confidentiality, patients might not want treatment.