The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) identifies a facility's refusal to let individuals access their own protected health information (PHI) as which compliance issue?

The situation described pertains to the essential rights of patients to access their own protected health information (PHI). A facility’s refusal to allow individuals access to their own PHI is fundamentally a violation of patient rights. Under regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), patients have the right to request and obtain copies of their medical records. This right is integral to promoting transparency, trust, and accountability in healthcare.

As a compliance issue, this refusal undermines the ethical principle of autonomy, which suggests that individuals should have control over their personal health information. This principle is crucial in fostering patient engagement and facilitating informed decision-making regarding one’s health. Therefore, labeling this issue as a violation of patient rights accurately reflects the ethical and legal foundation of the issue at hand.

The other choices relate to different aspects of health information management and compliance, but they do not directly address the core issue of patient access to their own information.