. >> reporter: the abc7 i-team reached out but was declined an interview, citing hipaa regulations. but they did say, our facility has been cooperating with state and county officials, ensuring that protocols are in place. yet they are rated below average, receiving 60 deficiencies in the past several years, including a $43,000 fine for inspection issues, getting only two stars for staffing. >> staffing was a problem in california nursing homes long before this suit. >> they expect staffing cuts will only get worse. >> facilities are not even getting cited and that's really giving especially bad facilities license to do whatever they want, even if it means cutting staff at the price of patient safety. >> reporter: according to an abc7 i-team analysis, millbae care center is one of several in the area that failed to meet the staffing requirement mandated by federal law. to put that in perspective, 50 of those facilities have registered nurses that reported zero hours in the last quarter of 2019. reduced staffing paired with poor oversight. >> soon after the pandemic began, state publ

that's the question it's really hard because you know 1st of all we have the cloak of secrecy we have hipaa rules you know we have the doctor patient confidentiality relationship so we don't have to speak to investigators about patients we can hike the is we have specialized things we can inject you that seem that are but 9 sitting on a desk like say lean or potassium but if it's injected in a certain concentration your heart will stop immediately but when you do an autopsy there's just some salient potassium in them no one knows for the better so by the way to your question there are all the cases that have been adjudicated ok but the recent cases there are not 100 years ago there are cases in the last several years where some doctor like this christopher dunn church who they call dr death i don't know if you're familiar with this guy he graduates of neurosurgery program he was supposed to go be in business he got an m.d. p.h.d. he was such a weirdo they kicked him out of the business so then he decides to go to texas and just open up a plastic neurosurgery practice he did 33 operations th

assured by his of administration, i can assure you can which is first off it's in statute already in hipaa's that pretty conditions the present conditions are comfortably at at people with pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable healthcare enhancing options. that commitment is there. obamacare, while it has insurance for individuals with pre-existing conditions, it's not always an affordable solution for them. we got to stop talking about this as it we are living in the land of milk and honey with obamacare. when you are a couple that makes $70,000 a year and you are living in nebraska and having to spend $38,000 a year on premiums and $12,000 $12,000 in deductid jeff pre-existing conditions, that's not actual affordable healthcare financing for you. we do believe there are ways to approach this working with congress. we do believe that our proven mechanisms. one of the fatal conceit of obamacare was you were going to make the healthy people in the individual market pay more, excessive more to find affordable interest of the less healthy people in the same individual market. w

tracing apps are not regulated under hipaa or any oth privacy laws.i have introduced bicameral legislation to regulate these acts. the proposal is called the public health emergency privacy act, but isn't there more than bash that -- more that the ftc could do? i know you have issued general guidance but nothing recent and nothing specific, as far as i'm aware, such as advisory notices to the tech co if the system of contact tracing is going to have any chance of work, privacy has to be assured to consumers. that is the ftc's job and i'm concerned that the f has been silent. >> so the privacy contact racing weng would address that in the absence of any special federal leslation using our unfairness into such an authority. and i can't, adding specific companies or any specific investigations whether we might of them open or not but this is an area where we have been heavily focused part of that is because consumers, you're right, consumers have to trustcontact e going to work. apps developers also need to know theules of the road, so, we have recently

hipaa, you know, in terps ms of getting medical information from the department of health. whatever data you can send my way, i'd appreciate it. >> we'll work on that. i wish you the best in the weeks ahead. it is sad that more than five months in, i wish you the best of luck in the days and weeks ahead. >>> the summer surge part of the first coronavirus wave. fresh problems with testing and dire warnings about the fall and the winter. i'm not hungry! you're having one more bite! no! one more bite! ♪ kraft. for the win win. l'oréal's magic root cover up three seconds to flawless roots three...two...one... roots gone! magic root cover up by l'oréal paris oh my gosh! my age-related macular degenso today i made a plan with my doctor, which includes preservision... because he said a multi- vitamin alone may not be enough. and it's my vision, my morning walk, my sunday drive, my grandson's beautiful face. only preservision areds2 contains the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced amd progression. it's how

>> as you say i'm limited from hipaa regulations.s patient contracted the virus before it was in america, contracted over in europe. he said he was pretty sick, pretty much in bed for a week, felt horrible, did not go to the hospital. but then totally recovered and went back to his normal way of life. then in mid-june, he contracted the illness again at an area restaurant that had some positive covid employees a couple days later that shut down. he got sick. and he went home thinking he's going to be kind of like the first episode he had over in europe. he got sicker and sicker. he was in a rural hospital. they did not have the capability of what we call high-flow oxygen. so, he sent him to montgomery where we started treating him. we tested him again with a pcr, the gold standard. so, we did diagnose him having covid-19 the second time, not a relapse. he had antibodies showing that he had some previous immunity. this patient went on about six days later and died of the illness. now, point this brings to us, we've always been told th

sure people have been tested for covid and they're supposed to answer questions for but then with hipaaou're not allowed to force them to give you proof. so how are you making your way through all of these regulations? >> yeah so it is really changing landscape day-to-day. just an hour 1/2 ago the governor came on television and announced that new york, new jersey, connecticut can now travel to maine without restriction. the biggest restriction we face folks from massachusetts which are our largest clientele base. they have to either quarantine in the state of maine for 14 days or have a negative covid test within 72 hours. we legally can't ask for proof of that test. the state provided a form we must have the guest sign prior to check-in, certify they have met those standards. we have to keep it on file in our records for 30 days after they depart the hotel. so there are some improvements certainly but we still are faced with a number of challenges to get you there the rest of the season. melissa: yeah. i mean having lived in maine myself, the season is very specific for most of touris

naz, you thankfully give us an update about what's going on in navajo land with covid hipaa i think, jenna, and a culture of the diabetes caucus in congress, and i think one of the reasons why tribal issues and covid are so extreme is because non-hispanic adults, in particular native americans are 2.5 times are likely to die from diabetes. add another diabetes is a big impact on your community and i'm wondering if you can talk about how you think that it's impacted the terrible coronavirus that we pat sat on navajo lands and other tribal areas? >> chairman, members of the committee and representative to get, thank you for that question, ma'am. we have heard the vulnerable population and the elders. the data that i cited earlier in the testimony is that of those 300 plus deaths here on the navajo nation, 379 deaths, 56% of those who have passed from covid-19 are over 60 years old. and those are our elderly. our elderly are in the vulnerable population because their opinion system is not strong, but many of them as you are seeing -- have diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancers. an

transmitted diseases are protected, then i think mental health should be protected by could be protected by hipaa as well. so i think this is about protecting patients health, that's why important to have 42 cfr fixed. thanks. >> well patrick, you have been very passionate about this and it was something that affects all of us. i think in your previous statement you said this. every family is affected by this, my family is no different. in oklahoma we have been affected by mental illness in the opioid and mental health issue. they are trying to self medicate and all the families have been devastated by this and so i just want to tell you again, i really appreciate it and thank you for your insight and import on that to. doctor evans, real quick, there has been an increase of almost 900% of mental health crisis hotlines, causing hotline this year, now more than ever. do you think it's more appropriate to remove some of the barriers that are prohibiting some of the treatments that could take place for people that are some freeing from mental illness? >> absolutely. i appreciate that question congre

office visit, allowed you to do telehealth from your home, and it waived penalties for accidental hipaa violations when using zoom and facetime and the like. all of this has dramatically increased the reach of telehealth and is something where we've learned how wonderful this can be in reaching those populations and improving the quality of their care, providing cost savings. all that has seemed to be one of the great a shining moments of the health system to do that on a wrregular basis. it needs to be looked at carefully and obviously it's difficult to get these things right. but it's important to start now. >> thank you. do any of our other witnesses wish to reflect on telehealth topic? dr. fernandez? >> thank you for the opportunity, congressman. i agree with you that telehealth has the opportunity to reduce disparities. it also has the opportunity to increase disparities. let me explain why. i'm a practicing physician and when you're doing telehealth, you're putting more onto the patient to triage themselves, to decide how serious something is, you're also putting more on them to s