Previously scheduled to take effect Feb. 18, the Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records final rule has now been put off until March 21. This means you won’t have access to easier consent requirements for sharing information with your patients’ other providers, among other benefits, for an extra month.

In a Jan. 20 memorandum, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus delayed the effective date of all final rules for 60 days, which included the confidentiality regulation. The purpose of the delay was to allow U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials, along with other federal groups, to further review and consider new regulations.

HHS noted, however, that the memorandum does not impact the confidentiality rule’s Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which closed Feb. 17. “Given the imminence of the effective date, seeking prior public comment on this delay would have been impractical, as well as contrary to the public interest in the orderly promulgation and implementation of regulations,” HHS said.

The new rule reduces the burden of consent for providers to share information regarding substance use patients. The old regulation required such patients to consent each time a provider sought to share their data. But HIPAA doesn’t require patients to consent when you disclose their information for most care-related matters, including treatment, payment and “other healthcare operations.” So the final rule will bring the release of information requirements for substance use patients more in line with others under HIPAA.