Give Us Our Damn Lab Results!!

Two years ago, the Department of Health and Human Services released proposed regulations that would allow patients to obtain their clinical lab test results directly from the lab, rather than having to wait to receive the results from their health care provider.  CDT and other consumer groups enthusiastically supported this proposed rule at the time of its release.

Yet an Administration largely characterized by increasing patient access to health information seems inexplicably unable to close the deal on this important access initiative.  As a result, patients still must wait for their providers to contact them with test results.

Under the current regulations, known as the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), laboratories are restricted from disclosing test results to patients directly.  Instead, labs can only send the test results to health care providers, people authorized to receive test results under state law or other labs. Only a handful of states permit labs to send patients test results directly, and some of these states require the provider’s permission before patients can have the results.  The HIPAA Privacy Rule reflects this restriction, exempting CLIA-regulated labs (which are the great majority of clinical labs) from patients’ existing right to access their health information.