H.R. 4157, The Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2005 (2 comments ↓)

• This item is from the 109th Congress (2005-2006) and is no longer current. Comments, voting, and wiki editing have been disabled, and the cost/savings estimate has been frozen.

H.R. 4157 would amend the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) to codify the establishment and responsibilities of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT). In addition, the bill would modify the Social Security Act to: Establish "safe harbors" that would permit gifts of health information technology that might otherwise be subject to civil monetary penalties, criminal penalties, or sanctions for violating the prohibitions against certain types of inducements for physician referrals; and Specify procedures for adopting updated standards for the electronic exchange of health data, and require that certain updated standards for coding medical services be implemented in 2009. H.R. 4157 would preempt, in some circumstances, certain state laws that govern the security and confidentiality of health information as well as laws that establish civil or criminal penalties for exchanging health information technology.