Last month, in support of the administration’s MyHealthEData initiative, the Department of Health and Human Services disclosed two new rules focused on promoting interoperability and giving patients more access to their health information and data.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Interoperability and Patient Access final rule will require CMS-regulated payers to make enrollee data immediately accessible by January 2021.
Plans will have to do this by developing a secure, standards-based API, or application programming interface that allows patients to easily access their claims and encounter information, including cost, through a third-party app of their choice.
The second rule, issued by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, establishes secure, standards-based API requirements to support a patient’s access and control of their electronic health information.
Cynthia Morton, executive vice president for National Association for the Support of Long Term Care, said the CMS rule — while an important step in providing greater patient access to their data — may be tough to implement in time, particularly given the current resource demand required for facilities to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
“Giving patients access to their medical claims and encounter data is very important and very exciting, but for nursing facilities, you have to look at the structure that IT developers are kind of dealing with in nursing homes,” Morton said. “It’s going to take a lot of pieces to come together to get that done by 2021.”
The final rule also proposes a new requirement of participation for Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals to send electronic notification to another healthcare facility, community provider or practitioner when a patient is admitted, discharged or transferred.
