CMS reaffirms its ban on texting physician orders, clarifies patient information exchange
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services clarified its position on texting in a new memo to state surveyors this week, noting that while texting physician orders is still prohibited, exchanging patient information on a secure platform is permitted.
The clarification comes weeks after the Report on Medicare Compliance, a newsletter distributed by the Health Care Compliance Association, reported that at least two hospitals received emails from CMS that said texting of any kind is prohibited. That shift came as a surprise to attorneys at Hall Render, who outlined several approaches for hospitals in the process of acquiring a secure messaging platform.
On the CMS “no texting determination” I wrote about in Report on Medicare Compliance, CMS now says in an email (to M.D. Ron Hirsch) it’s “working with internal CMS components to provide a unified, consistent response to the numerous issues regarding the use of texting platforms.”
In a memo released on Thursday to state survey agencies, CMS clarified that while texting patient orders is still prohibited regardless of the platform, members of the healthcare team are allowed to text patient information through a secure platform.
While recognizing that texting “has become an essential and valuable means of communication among the team members,” CMS said in order to meet federal regulations, hospitals must use a messaging platform that is “secure, encrypted, and minimize the risks to patient privacy and confidentiality as per HIPAA regulations.”
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