In June, the HHS Office for Civil Rights announced a $5,000 settlement with a West Virginia diabetes practice OCR said took nearly two years to honor a patient’s medical records request^[1] —the 19th such agreement since former Director Roger Severino launched the initiative in September 2019 and the agency’s 20th overall.

A political appointee, Severino resigned in January; to the concern of some, including Severino himself, the director’s job has remained vacant as of early August and tasks are multiplying.^[2] Severino and fellow former director Leon Rodriguez also shared their experiences on the job.^[3]

Among the questions to confront a new director is whether the records access effort should continue—in Severino’s view, it should. Moreover, Severino told RPP that more than two dozen additional cases of alleged records access violations were heading toward a formal resolution when he left.