New Hampshire Code of Administrative Rules
He - Department of Health and Human Services
Subtitle He-W - Former Division of Human Services
Chapter He-W 900 - OTHER PROGRAMS ADMINISTERED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Part He-W 950 - COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE INFORMATION SYSTEM PROCEDURES FOR THE RELEASE OF CLAIMS DATA SETS FOR PUBLIC AND RESEARCH PURPOSES
Section He-W 950.03 - Definitions

Universal Citation: NH Admin Rules He-W 950.03

Current through Register No. 40, October 3, 2024

(a) "Cell size" means the count of patients that share a set of characteristics contained in a statistical table.

(b) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of the New Hampshire department of health and human services or his or her designee.

(1) Have not been revealed previously to the general public; and

(2) Directly identify a patient.

(d) "Department" means the New Hampshire department of health and human services.

(e) "Direct patient identifiers" means:

(1) Names;

(2) Business names when that name would serve to identify a patient;

(3) Postal address information other than town or city, state, and 5-digit zip code;

(4) Specific latitude and longitude or other geographic information that would be used to derive postal address;

(5) Telephone and fax numbers that identify a patient;

(6) Electronic mail addresses that identify a patient;

(7) Social security numbers that identify a patient;

(8) Medical record numbers;

(9) Health plan beneficiary numbers;

(10) Certificate and license numbers that identify a patient;

(11) Internet protocol (IP) addresses and uniform resource locators (URL) that identify a business that would serve to identify a patient;

(12) Biometric identifiers, including finger and voice prints; and

(13) Personal photographic images.

(f) "Disclosure" means to communicate clinical or other health care information data collected pursuant to RSA 420-G:11, II, to a person not already in possession of that information.

(g) "Encrypted" means a method by which the true value of data has been disguised in order to prevent the identification of persons or groups, and which does not provide the means for recovering the true value of the data.

(h) "Health care claims data sets" means information consisting of or derived directly from member eligibility files, or medical, pharmacy, or dental claims files submitted by health care claims processors collected under RSA 420-G:11, II, and include:

(1) Public use data sets; and

(2) Limited use data sets.

(i) "Health care practitioner" means physicians and all persons licensed or registered as a health care provider in the state of New Hampshire including, but not limited to:

(1) Nurses;

(2) Podiatrists;

(3) Optometrists;

(4) Pharmacists;

(5) Chiropractors;

(6) Physical therapists;

(7) Dentists;

(8) Psychologists;

(9) Licensed clinical social workers;

(10) Marriage and family therapists;

(11) Professional counselors; and

(12) Physicians' assistants.

(j) "Indirect patient identifier" means:

(1) All geographic subdivisions of New Hampshire or any state or province, including census tracts, blocks, and block groups, cities, towns, zip codes, and their equivalent geocodes, except county;

(2) Race;

(3) All elements of dates, except year, for dates related to a patient, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death, and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates, including year, indicative of such age, except that such elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 and older; and

(4) Group policy numbers.

(k) "Limited use data set" means a health care claims data set that contains restricted data elements, which might be disclosed to an outside party for research purposes without the patient's authorization when:

(1) All direct patient identifiers have been encrypted in such a way as to not allow direct identification, and to prevent linkage to other data sets where the patient can be directly identified;

(2) Any data that directly identifies or would lead to the indirect identification of health care practitioners performing abortions has been removed; and

(3) All insured group or policy numbers cannot be used to directly identify a patient.

(l) "Patient" means any person in the data set that is the subject of the activities of the claim performed by the health care provider.

(m) "Principal investigator" means the person in charge of a project that makes use of limited use data sets. The principal investigator is the custodian of the data and is responsible for the observance of all conditions of use and for establishment and maintenance of security arrangements to prevent unauthorized use.

(n) "Public use data set" means a data set that is publically available, contains data collected under RSA 420-G:11, II, is free of confidential data, and from which all known direct or indirect patient identifiers have been removed in accordance with 45 CFR 164.514(a) -(b) .

(o) "Release" means to make all or part of the claims data set available for inspection and analysis to persons other than the department and the New Hampshire insurance department (NHID) .

(p) "Research" means "research" as defined in 45 CFR 46.102(d) .

(q) "Statistical table" means single or multivariate counts based on the information contained in a data set and which does not include any direct identifiers.

#8600, eff 4-6-06

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