On July 15, 2022, the Biden administration extended the Covid-19 public health emergency for another three months. US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra officially renewed the declaration, extending it through October 13, 2022.  With the extension of the public health emergency, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) which enforces HIPAA, will continue its discretionary enforcement and will not impose penalties against covered providers for the lack of a BAA or for any other noncompliance with the HIPAA rules that relate to provision of Telehealth services during the public health emergency. That means that a provider who needs to provide Telehealth services to their patients during this time may use platforms that would otherwise not be “HIPAA-compliant” such as Facetime. Providers may use other popular applications that allow for private video chats, including Facebook Messenger video chat, Skype, or Google Hangouts video to provide Telehealth without risk that the OCR will penalize the provider. However, video communication applications that are public facing such as Facebook Live and Tik Tok should not be used in the provision of telehealth by covered health care providers. For more information on this notice: click here.  

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