News in brief - Oct. 23/30, 2006

Medicare acting chief takes reins - Ind. court rules against search of minors' patient files

Medicare acting chief takes reins

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Deputy Administrator Leslie Norwalk took over acting control of the agency effective Oct. 15. She will serve in this capacity until a permanent replacement is approved. Norwalk replaces outgoing CMS chief Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, who is leaving to seek employment at a think tank or in academia. As deputy director, Norwalk managed day-to-day operations of Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs, in addition to overseeing the implementation of hundreds of Medicare reforms.

Before the roughly five years that she has served in the administration, Norwalk practiced health care law in the Washington, D.C., office of Epstein Becker & Green. She also worked in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel in the first Bush administration.

Ind. court rules against search of minors' patient files

The Office of the Indiana Attorney General was ordered to return minor patients' medical records to Planned Parenthood of Indiana after a Sept. 22 ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

The Indiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit seized some of the confidential files while investigating a complaint that Planned Parenthood of Indiana neglected 73 of its minor patients by allegedly failing to report child sexual abuse as required by Indiana law, according to court records. The Planned Parenthood chapter denies the allegations and filed a lawsuit in 2005 to block the state from taking patients' private files.

"We acknowledge the significant public interest in investigating complaints of patient neglect and allegations of child sexual abuse, but granting [the state's] demand for unlimited access to [Planned Parenthood of Indiana's] minor patients' medical records is neither the only, nor the most effective, nor the least intrusive means of serving those interests," the court opinion states.

A spokeswoman for Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter did not return calls for comment on whether the agency plans to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.