On September 21, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) submitted a proposed regulation titled “Interoperability and Patient Access” to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to undergo the final stage of federal review before being released to the public.
The submission of this rule follows the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)’s own submission of a highly anticipated proposal for implementing provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act related to interoperability, health IT certification, and information blocking. Although OMB regulatory reviews can vary in length, they typically conclude within two months of a regulation’s submission. (See here and here for more details.)
NextGen Healthcare will analyze these proposed regulations upon release. Based on the name of the proposal and CMS’s recent requests for stakeholder feedback regarding patients access to health records, this regulation will likely to have a significant impact on healthcare providers, the EHR industry and policies concerning interoperability at the national level.