AHA, EHRA challenge Maryland court’s enforcement of federal information blocking rule

The AHA and the Electronic Health Record Association Sept. 23 filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, challenging a Maryland district court decision to allow Linthicum, Md.-based Real Time Medical Systems to proceed with a state-law claim premised on the federal Cures Act's information blocking prohibition. The law does not include a cause of action that allows private parties to enforce that prohibition. Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services is required under the law to provide a process for the public to report claims of information blocking, and HHS ultimately makes the decision whether to investigate claims and pursue any enforcement, according to the brief.

"The district court's decision, however, offers competitors and other private parties the chance to bypass HHS entirely - and to take information blocking enforcement into their own hands," the brief notes. "In granting Real Time's motion for a preliminary injunction, the district court allowed Real Time to proceed with - and even found that the company was 'likely to succeed on' - a Maryland common law claim that, '[a]t its core,' alleges conduct that 'amounts to 'information blocking' of protected patient medical records in violation of the 21st Century Cares Act.' If the decision is upheld, private parties in this Circuit will have the ability to commandeer state law to bring what amounts to an 'information blocking' claim in all but name."

AHA urged the appeals court to reverse or narrow the district court's ruling.