Title: Patient Matching Improvement Act of 2020
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Patient Matching Improvement Act of 2020
This bill requires the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to take certain actions to standardize, in the United States Postal Service (USPS) standard, the format of postal addresses.
Specifically, the ONC must, within 90 days, make available a USPS tool that automatically formats addresses into the correct standard to health care providers and laboratories that test for COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) at no cost. The USPS currently provides this tool to online retailers at no cost.
In addition, the ONC must update regulations to require, as a condition of certification, that health information technology use the USPS standard for postal addresses.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4456 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4456

  To amend the Public Health Service Act to permit health information 
   technology systems to use the Postal Service tool to standardize 
     formatting in electronic health records when entering patient 
       information to improve match rates among patient records.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             August 5, 2020

Ms. Hassan (for herself and Mr. Cassidy) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, 
                     Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Public Health Service Act to permit health information 
   technology systems to use the Postal Service tool to standardize 
     formatting in electronic health records when entering patient 
       information to improve match rates among patient records.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Patient Matching Improvement Act of 
2020''.

SEC. 2. USE OF USPS FORMATTING TOOL.

    Section 3001(c)(2) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 
300jj-11(c)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
                    ``(C) USPS formatting tool.--
                            ``(i) In general.--Not later than 90 days 
                        after the date of enactment of this 
                        subparagraph, the Secretary, acting through the 
                        National Coordinator, shall ensure that the 
                        United States Postal Service electronic address 
                        formatting tools that are made available by the 
                        United States Postal Service to online 
                        retailers at no cost are also made available to 
                        health care providers for use in health 
                        information technology systems at no cost. The 
                        Secretary shall ensure that the electronic 
                        address formatting tools are made available to 
                        any health care organization (including 
                        hospitals, physician offices, electronic health 
                        record vendors, State and local health 
                        departments, registries, and other 
                        organizations as determined necessary by the 
                        Secretary) to transform both single address 
                        records and multiple, simultaneous address 
                        records into the United States Postal Service 
                        preferred address format. The Secretary shall 
                        ensure that no limitations exist on the number 
                        of records or health organizations that use the 
                        electronic conversion tool.
                            ``(ii) COVID-19 laboratory testing.--Not 
                        later than 90 days after the date of enactment 
                        of this subparagraph, the Secretary shall make 
                        available the United States Postal Service 
                        address formatting tool for use by laboratories 
                        engaged in COVID-19 testing to accompany COVID-
                        19 laboratory results.
                            ``(iii) Certification.--Not later than 1 
                        year after the date of enactment of this 
                        subparagraph, the Secretary shall promulgate 
                        regulations to update the conditions of 
                        certification for health information technology 
                        to require the standardization of addresses in 
                        the United States Postal Service standard. The 
                        Secretary shall update requirements under 
                        section 3022(a) to include the United States 
                        Postal Service format as the standard for 
                        addresses when communicated through application 
                        programming interfaces under this 
                        subparagraph.''.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    To carry out the amendment made by this Act, there are authorized 
to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary.
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