I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2002
To amend title XXX of the Public Health Service Act to establish standards
and protocols to improve patient matching.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH10, 2025
Mr. K
ELLYof Pennsylvania (for himself, Mr. FOSTER, and Mr. MOULTON)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on En-
ergy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Ways and
Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend title XXX of the Public Health Service Act to
establish standards and protocols to improve patient
matching.
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 And 4
Transparency in Certified Health IT Act of 2025’’ or the 5
‘‘MATCH IT Act of 2025’’. 6
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 7
Congress finds the following: 8
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(1) Ensuring accurate patient identification and 1
matching is key to achieving the interoperability 2
within the health care system called for by Congress 3
in the 21st Century Cures Act and the Health Infor-4
mation Technology for Economic and Clinical 5
Health (HITECH) Act. 6
(2) There is currently no national strategy to 7
ensure patients are accurately matched with their 8
medical records. 9
(3) There is no standard definition across the 10
health care system of ‘‘patient match rate’’ to ensure 11
the ability to accurately measure patient matches 12
and patient misidentification. 13
(4) The patient match rates that are available 14
can vary widely, with an estimate from CHIME not-15
ing that matching within facilities can be as low as 16
80 percent—meaning that one out of every five pa-17
tients may not be matched to all his or her records. 18
(5) Patient misidentification within the United 19
States health care system is a threat to patient safe-20
ty, patient privacy, and a driver of unnecessary costs 21
to patients and providers. 22
(6) The inability of clinicians to ensure patients 23
are accurately matched with their medical record has 24
caused medical errors, and even lives lost. Patient 25
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misidentification has been named a recurrent patient 1
safety challenge in multiple years by ECRI. 2
(7) Patients must undergo unnecessary re-3
peated medical tests because of the inability to en-4
sure accurate matches to their medical record. 5
(8) The expense of repeated medical care due to 6
duplicate records costs an average of $1,950 per pa-7
tient inpatient stay, and more than $1,700 per 8
emergency department visit. Thirty-five percent of 9
all denied claims result from inaccurate patient iden-10
tification, costing the average hospital $2.5 million 11
and the United States health care system more than 12
$6.7 billion annually. 13
(9) Overlaid records, caused by merging mul-14
tiple patients’ data into one medical record, may re-15
sult in unauthorized disclosures under the Health 16
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 17
(HIPAA), as well as the risk of a patient receiving 18
treatment for another patient’s condition. 19
(10) This Act would decrease the prevalence of 20
patient misidentification by further promoting inter-21
operability, thereby protecting patients and address-22
ing high costs driven by this issue. 23
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SEC. 3. STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS TO IMPROVE PA-1
TIENT MATCHING. 2
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Subtitle C of title XXX of the 3
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300jj–51 et seq.) 4
is amended by adding at the end the following new section: 5
‘‘SEC. 3023. STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS TO IMPROVE PA-6
TIENT MATCHING. 7
‘‘(a) E
STABLISHING AUNIFORMDEFINITION FOR 8
P
ATIENTMATCHRATE.— 9
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days 10
after the date of enactment of this section, the Sec-11
retary shall, in consultation with health care pro-12
viders, vendors of electronic health records and 13
health information technology, patient groups, and 14
other relevant stakeholders, develop a definition and 15
standards for accurate and precise patient matching 16
to track patient match rates and document improve-17
ments of patient matching over time. The Secretary 18
shall ensure that such definition and standards for 19
patient match rate account for— 20
‘‘(A) duplicate records; 21
‘‘(B) overlaid records; 22
‘‘(C) instances of multiple matches found; 23
and 24
‘‘(D) mismatch rates within the same 25
healthcare organizations and provider systems. 26
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‘‘(2) REVIEW AND UPDATE .—In consultation 1
with health care providers, vendors of electronic 2
health records and health information technology, 3
patient groups, and other relevant stakeholders, the 4
Secretary shall review and update the definition and 5
standards developed under paragraph (1), as appro-6
priate, not less frequently than once every 3 years 7
to ensure that such definition and standards are 8
consistent with updates and improvements in tech-9
nologies and processes. 10
‘‘(b) D
EVELOPMENT OF A STANDARDDATASETTO 11
I
MPROVEPATIENTMATCHING.— 12
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days 13
after the date of enactment of this section, subject 14
to paragraph (2), the National Coordinator shall re-15
view the current data set in the United States Core 16
Data for Interoperability and identify, define, and 17
adopt the minimum data set needed to support the 18
adoption of patient matching by entities, including 19
health care providers, developers of health care in-20
formation technology or certified health IT, or 21
health information networks of exchange, at a rate 22
of 99.9 percent. The National Coordinator shall in-23
clude such minimum data set in the United States 24
Core Data for Interoperability. 25
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‘‘(2) DEVELOPMENT OF DATA STANDARDS IN 1
UNITED STATES CORE DATA FOR INTEROPER -2
ABILITY.—For purposes of improving interoperable 3
health exchange, not later than 1 year after defining 4
the minimum data set described in paragraph (1), 5
the National Coordinator shall create, update, or 6
adopt data standards for the data elements identi-7
fied in the minimum data set and incorporate such 8
standards into the United States Core Data for 9
Interoperability. 10
‘‘(3) C
ONSULTATION REQUIRED .—In identifying 11
and defining the minimum data set described in 12
paragraph (1) and creating, updating, or adopting 13
data standards described in paragraph (2), the Na-14
tional Coordinator shall consult with— 15
‘‘(A) health care providers; 16
‘‘(B) vendors of electronic health records; 17
‘‘(C) vendors of health information tech-18
nology; 19
‘‘(D) patient groups; 20
‘‘(E) Federal agencies, including the Na-21
tional Institute of Standards and Technology, 22
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 23
the Department of Defense, the National Insti-24
tutes of Health, the Department of Veterans 25
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Affairs, the Social Security Administration, the 1
Indian Health Service, and the Office for Civil 2
Rights; 3
‘‘(F) public health authorities within State, 4
local, territorial, and Tribal; and 5
‘‘(G) any other stakeholders the Secretary 6
determines appropriate. 7
‘‘(4) R
ULE OF CONSTRUCTION .—Nothing in 8
this subsection shall be construed to require an enti-9
ty to meet a minimum patient match rate of 99.9 10
percent.’’. 11
(b) I
NCORPORATING THE MINIMUMDATASET FOR 12
P
ATIENTMATCHINGINTOCERTIFICATIONREQUIRE-13
MENTS.—Section 3004(b) of subtitle B of title XXX of 14
the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300jj–14(b)) is 15
amended by adding at the end the following new subpara-16
graph: 17
‘‘(4) S
PECIAL RULE.— 18
‘‘(A) I
NCORPORATION OF MINIMUM DATA 19
SET INTO HEALTH IT CERTIFICATION REQUIRE -20
MENTS.—Notwithstanding paragraph (3), the 21
Secretary shall incorporate and adopt the min-22
imum data set for patient matching established 23
under section 3023 into the certification criteria 24
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adopted under this section not later than 180 1
days after such data set is finalized. 2
‘‘(B) I
NCORPORATION OF MINIMUM DATA 3
SET INTO MEDICARE INTEROPERABILITY PRO -4
GRAM REQUIREMENTS .—Not later than 24 5
months after the incorporation of the minimum 6
data set for patient matching into the certifi-7
cation criteria as required in subparagraph (A), 8
the Secretary shall incorporate and adopt such 9
minimum data set for patient matching estab-10
lished under section 3023 into program require-11
ments to promote the interoperability of cer-12
tified EHR technology for entities participating 13
in the Medicare program under title XVIII of 14
the Social Security Act.’’. 15
(c) A
DDITIONALINCENTIVESTOPROMOTEINTER-16
OPERABILITY.— 17
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 24 months 18
after the incorporation and adoption of the min-19
imum data set for patient matching into the pro-20
gram requirements to promote the interoperability of 21
certified EHR technology for entities participating 22
under the Medicare program under title XVIII of 23
the Social Security Act as required in subparagraph 24
(B) of section 3004(b)(4) of title XXX of the Public 25
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Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300jj–14(b)), the Ad-1
ministrator of the Centers for Medicare and Med-2
icaid Services shall, through rulemaking, establish a 3
voluntary bonus measure within the Medicare Pro-4
moting Interoperability Program for eligible pro-5
viders who meet an accurate patient match rate (as 6
defined under section 3023 of subtitle C of title 7
XXX of the Public Health Service Act) of at least 8
90 percent or the rate determined under paragraph 9
(4) to voluntary attest to and receive a payment ad-10
justment for meeting such measure. 11
(2) S
PECIAL RULE.—In establishing the vol-12
untary bonus measure described in paragraph (1), 13
the Administrator shall— 14
(A) ensure that the total score for incen-15
tive payments or status as an eligible provider 16
will not be negatively impacted if the eligible 17
provider does not attest to an accurate patient 18
match rate; and 19
(B) ensure that the voluntary attestations 20
regarding patient matching rates shall not be 21
publicly disclosed. 22
(3) V
OLUNTARY REPORTING PROGRAM .—The 23
National Coordinator, along with the Centers for 24
Medicare and Medicaid Services and other Federal 25
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agencies determined appropriate by the Secretary, 1
shall develop a voluntary reporting program for eligi-2
ble providers to anonymously submit patient match-3
ing accuracy data to the Department of Health and 4
Human Services. 5
(4) A
NNUAL REVIEW OF PATIENT MATCH 6
RATE.— 7
(A) I
N GENERAL.—Utilizing the patient 8
matching accuracy data described in paragraph 9
(2) and any additional data sources available, 10
the Administrator of the Centers of Medicare 11
and Medicaid Services shall review and evaluate 12
the patient match attestation rates annually to 13
determine if such rate should be adjusted. 14
(B) A
DJUSTMENT.—The Administrator 15
may adjust the patient match rate described in 16
paragraph (1) if the Administrator determines 17
that the patient match attestation rate should 18
be adjusted to further incentivize the voluntary 19
reporting of accurate patient match rates. 20
Æ
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