Patient Identification

The ban established by Congress under the appropriations process since FY1999 prohibits any federal funding from being used to implement a patient identifier. This ban creates a serious impediment to interoperability of healthcare information. As our healthcare system moves toward nationwide health information exchange, this essential core functionality – consistency in identifying a patient – remains conspicuously absent. As data exchange increases among providers, patient data matching errors and mismatches will become exponentially more problematic and dangerous. Given the current ban, CHIME created a $1 million challenge to locate a private sector-led solution to patient identification CHIME hopes to announce the winner of the National Patient Identification Challenge later this year. In the meantime, we continue to advocate for removal of this ban.

 CHIME Top Recommendations to Policymakers

  • Congress should remove the ban rooted in the Labor-HHS appropriations language in place since FY1999 that prohibits HHS from promulgating or adopting any final standard for the assignment of a unique health identifier for an individual
  • HHS should support private sector-led efforts to locate a solution to patient identification and provide technical support

CIO Cheat Sheets

Legislative Briefs

 Letters to the Administration 

 Congressional Letters & Testimony 

CHIME Efforts to Solve Patient Identification Issues 

Office of the National Coordinator 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports 

  • GAO report, “Social Security Numbers: OMB and Federal Efforts to Reduce Collection, Use, and Display” (GAO-17-655T, May 2017)

Medicare Requirement to Remove Social Security Numbers from Beneficiary Cards 

 Outside Resources & Stakeholders