Patient Matching Improvement Act of 2021

II 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 217 To permit the use of certain United States Postal Service formatting tools by health care organizations to improve the provision of patient matching services. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES FEBRUARY 3, 2021 Ms. HASSAN (for herself and Mr. CASSIDY) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Edu- cation, Labor, and Pensions A BILL To permit the use of certain United States Postal Service formatting tools by health care organizations to improve the provision of patient matching services. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Patient Matching Im- 4 provement Act of 2021’’. 5 SEC. 2. USE OF UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE FOR- 6 MATTING TOOLS. 7 (a) UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE FORMATTING 8 TOOLS.— 9 VerDate Sep 11 2014 15:50 Feb 21, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S217.IS S217 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •S 217 IS (1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after 1 the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 2 Health and Human Services, acting through the Na- 3 tional Coordinator for Health Information Tech- 4 nology, shall— 5 (A) collaborate with the United States 6 Postmaster General in order to make its elec- 7 tronic address formatting tools available, as ap- 8 propriate and consistent with the terms and 9 conditions of such tools, to health care organi- 10 zations (including hospitals, physician offices, 11 electronic health record vendors, State and local 12 health departments, registries, laboratories, and 13 other organizations as determined necessary by 14 the Secretary) for use in health information 15 technology systems; 16 (B) ensure that the electronic address for- 17 matting tools that are made available to health 18 care organizations are able to transform single 19 address records and multiple, simultaneous ad- 20 dress records into the United States Postal 21 Service preferred address format; and 22 (C) collaborate with the United States 23 Postmaster General to prevent any limitations 24 on the number of records formatted using the 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 15:50 Feb 21, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S217.IS S217 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •S 217 IS address formatting tools or health care organi- 1 zations that could use the electronic address 2 formatting tools. 3 (2) COVID–19 LABORATORY TESTING.—Not 4 later than 90 days after the date of enactment of 5 this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human Serv- 6 ices shall collaborate with the United States Post- 7 master General in order to make its electronic ad- 8 dress formatting tools available, as appropriate and 9 consistent with the terms and conditions of such 10 tools, to laboratories engaged in COVID–19 testing 11 to improve, as appropriate, data collection consistent 12 with State and local laws. 13 (3) CERTIFICATION.—Not later than 1 year 14 after the date of enactment of this Act, the Sec- 15 retary of Health and Human Services shall promul- 16 gate an interim final rule to require the standardiza- 17 tion of addresses in the United States Postal Service 18 format or subsequent health care specific standard 19 as the standard for addresses when communicated 20 through application programming interfaces. The 21 Secretary shall update any applicable standard and 22 certification requirements pursuant to sections 3004 23 and 3001(c)(5) of the Public Health Service Act. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 15:50 Feb 21, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S217.IS S217 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •S 217 IS (b) REPORT.—Not later than 120 days after the date 1 of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and 2 Human Services, in consultation with the United States 3 Postmaster General, shall submit to the Committee on 4 Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the Com- 5 mittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 6 of the Senate, and the Committee on Energy and Com- 7 merce and the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the 8 House of Representatives, a report that identifies any bar- 9 riers, as applicable, to making the tools described in sub- 10 section (a) available for purposes of such section if the 11 Postmaster General determines that such tools may not 12 be made available at such time. 13 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 15:50 Feb 21, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S217.IS S217 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS