Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) issued a final rule that implements certain 21st Century Cures Act provisions that include, among other things, items to improve healthcare IT—most notably, in relation to nationwide interoperability, providing patients with access to their electronic health information and restricting information blocking.
In addition, the regulations prohibit certified EHR vendors from enforcing certain types of contractual restrictions on communications (for example, “gag clauses”) that some EHR vendors were known to maintain; and require vendors to inform those with whom they contract that they will not enforce any contractual terms that conflict with the new Conditions and Maintenance of Certification regulations.
Since its inception, NextGen Healthcare’s philosophy and practice has been to promote interoperability and make the client’s data accessible to the client, including upon termination of their relationship with the Company. We have tried to avoid restrictions on communications in our standard agreements.
However, as a result of the new Act, we have updated our standard agreements and business practices to make sure they better align with the Act. For those of you already under contract with us, we wanted to make you aware of how the Act’s terms affect your existing agreement(s). While we will be sending out additional information in the future, this written notice provides guidance and fulfills our regulatory obligation pertaining to notifying existing customers and vendors of our immediate forbearance of enforcement of any conflicting terms in our agreement(s).
If you have any questions about this notice, please don’t hesitate to contact your account representative.