Miscellaneous federal actions
and regulations in 2001
January 3, 2002
| Issue | Action | Status |
| The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) | The
act mandates regulations that govern patient privacy, security
and electronic transactions. By passing , Congress sets two goals: 1. To introduce a national standard for health care organizations to use when exchanging electronic records 2. To ensure that “all medical information sent electronically” remains confidential |
The
Department of Health and Human Services has issued draft standards
and privacy regulations and has published final regulations
related to electronic transactions and privacy.
The act requires that these regulations are implemented within two years by “any organization that transfers patient medical information electronically.” The regulations will affect how health care organizations handle all reimbursement, coding, security and patient information. |
| Ergonomics
rules that supported safe working environments |
Congress repealed rules in March. | The U.S. has estimated that the HIPAA implementation will cost the health care industry roughly $3.8 billion over five years after the privacy standards are met, with costs resulting from technological upgrades and “hiring experts to maintain the evolving systems.” |
| Supreme Court decision limits unions’ ability to organize nurses | In
May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled* 5-4 that RNs are supervisors
when they use independent judgment when directing employees.
(*National Labor Relations Board v. Kentucky River Community Care Inc.) |
The Clinton
administration established the rules. Industry and labor opposed
the rules.
Ruling makes it harder for unions to organize nurses into collective bargaining units. Justices William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia found that under the National Labor Relations Act, the health care facility was accurate in its definition of RNs as supervisors because of the nature of their duties. This decision supported an earlier decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Justices John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented. In his majority opinion, Scalia wrote that the NLRA deems employees to be supervisors (using independent judgment) if they practice one of 12 functions: authority to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, discipline or direct other employees, or to adjust their grievances, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature. |
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