Clarification on Veteran’s Health Information Exchange Opt In/Out process : Veterans

Hello all,

As many of you probably remember with the passage of the MISSION Act, that there was also a provision that allowed for the VA to opt in any veterans that had NOT previously opted out of VHIE before the implementation of the MISSION Act. This allowed for the exchange of electronic medical records with approved community partners only at the time of your appointments, or to close out that consult. Approved list of partners here – (https://www.va.gov/VHIE/VHIE_Participating_Partners.asp)

If you wished to opt out of this system, you would simply need to find the 10-10164 form at the VA forms website (https://www.va.gov/vaforms/medical/pdf/10-10164-fill.pdf) fill it out, and then take it into ROI.

HOWEVER, one thing that I would like to educate everyone here on, the staff member needs to input that information from the form into a program called VHIE PORTAL. If the staff person simply scans the form into the medical record, it will NOT take effect and you will still continue to share your medical information if you go to a provider on that list from above. So, you may want to ask the staff member if they are entering the form information into VHIE PORTAL first. If not, kindly refer them to sending an email to VHIE staff members (VAExchangeinformation@va.gov) and getting approved for VHIE portal. VAMC staff members may not know about VHIE Portal because the coordinators running VHIE at your facility were the ones that were entering these forms into VHIE Portal – so go easy on the VAMC staff members as they get up to speed on this.

Also, keep in mind that simply opting out with the form only blocks the community partner from seeing your VA medical record. It does NOT stop a VAMC staff member from seeing the community partner data. In order to stop that, you must follow the guidelines established by the community partner that you are going to and follow that process at that facility.

As always, you can also opt out of VHIE by going to My Healthy Vet and after signing into your My HealtheVet Premium account, select Health Records on the dashboard and then Electronic Record Sharing Options. Also of note, in the case of an emergency, staff members may ‘break the glass’ and access your records.

I hope that this tidbit of information helps you all when deciding about your healthcare.