In October 2022, the Cures Act Information Blocking Rule was refined and expanded to ensure that health care providers are prohibited from blocking or interfering with patient access to any electronic information, as defined by HIPAA. Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are included in the Cures Act and must abide by this rule. The information blocking rule and provisions are overseen by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to ensure that patients have more control over their health care information, which includes timely access to medical records within an individual’s patient portal, and ensuring that patients receive medical information in a format that they request (for example, choosing to use a patient portal or have access to their medical information through a healthcare provider’s website). There are eight (8) exceptions to information blocking. These are:

• Infeasibility exception
• Prevent harm exception
• Privacy exception
• Security exception
• Health IT performance exception
• Content and manner exception
• Fees exception
• Licensing exception

These exceptions are meant to offer assurance to health care providers that when a reasonable and necessary practice is covered by an exception, it will not be considered information blocking. Health Centers are strongly encouraged to develop additional policies and procedures on Information Blocking to ensure compliance with the expanded Cures Act. For more information, please review: https://www.healthit.gov/topic/information-blocking.