Update! Docs LOSE their lawsuit against HHS. A federal court in Houston, Texas dismissed the lawsuit brought by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons challenging the validity of the Federal Privacy Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. AAPS claimed that HHS had exceeded the authority delegated to it in HIPAA by regulating health information in non-electronic (e.g., oral and paper) format. The court rejected this claim, determining that the plain language of HIPAA authorized HHS to regulate individually identifiable health information in non-electronic as well as electronic form. The association also asserted that the regulations violate the First, Fourth, and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution. The court dismissed these constitutional claims on the procedural grounds that the claims were not ripe for judicial review due to the fact that the association had not suffered actual or imminent injury and that the association lacked standing to pursue the claims. The entire text of the ruling in this case, The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Civ. No. H 01-2963 .( S.D. Tex. June 17, 2002) and briefs filed in the case are available at: http://www.aapsonline.org/.
