ONC Policy Director Jodi Daniel to Leave Post

Jodi Daniel, J.D., Director of the Office of Policy in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), will be stepping down from her post early next month, according to several news media reports.

Daniel is the longest-tenured senior official at ONC, an agency that has experienced mass departures to its senior-level leadership over the last year. According to a MedCity News report, Daniel has confirmed herself that she is stepping down on Oct. 9. Daniel’s Twitter account also confirms that she will be leaving, as she has been “retweeting” those who have congratulated her for her work over the years. Daniel has not yet indicated where she will be going next.

According to her ONC bio, Daniel developed the agency’s foundational legal strategies for health IT, as the first Senior Counsel for Health Information Technology in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) of HHS. She was responsible for coordinating all legal advice regarding health IT for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and was the lead attorney for ONC. She founded and chaired the health information technology practice group within OGC and worked closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the development of the e-prescribing standards regulations and the proposed Stark and anti-kickback rules regarding e-prescribing and electronic health records (EHRs).

As an Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Office of General Counsel, Daniel played a central role in developing health information privacy policies and drafting the final Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and modifications, and the HIPAA Enforcement Rule. Before joining HHS, Daniel was a healthcare associate at Ropes & Gray, where she advised healthcare providers and payers on transactional, regulatory, and legislative issues.