The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 required the creation of a national patient identifier – a unique ID for all U.S. citizens that would reliably link medical records to the correct persons. The mismatching of medical records remains an issue in healthcare like in 1996, the year HIPAA was introduced.
For example, a patient has a similar name and birth date to another patient in a hospital. They encountered several instances of mismatching of their records, leading to unauthorized exposure of their data. Both patients’ safety are at risk. It is not unusual for health records to be overlaid, meaning several patients’ data are combined in one record. This can cause an unauthorized sharing of medical information, which is not allowed under HIPAA, and could endanger patient safety. The Boston Globe report in 2016 discovered 14 cases where the procedures were done on the wrong individual due to mismatching of patients in Massachusetts.
Whenever a patient comes to a hospital, a search is done to know if the patient is present in the system. When there are no records found, the staff creates a new record. Search and data entry issues may easily result in duplicate records, which can be costly. In 2024, Black Book Research discovered that repeating medical procedures because of identical health data costs about $1,950 per individual inpatient stay and more than $1,750 per ED visit. The research likewise discovered that 35% of all rejected claims were due to wrong patient ID or data, costing a typical hospital $2.5 million in 2020 and the healthcare sector over $6.7 billion each year.
Mismatching occurrences are costly, bring about privacy breaches, prevent safe health information exchange, and could cause permanent injury to patients. Sometimes, mismatching of medical records can become deadly. A national patient identifier could aid in resolving the problem. However, Congress has continuously restricted any government funding being allotted for work on creating or implementing a unique, national patient identifier because of privacy issues. In case all data are linked to one identifier, a person’s whole health record can be compromised. With a unique patient identifier, individuals can be tracked resulting in discrimination for work, credit, insurance, and opportunities. There were numerous attempts to lift the restriction but all were unsuccessful.
To deal with the issue of patient mismatching, a bipartisan pair of senators introduced the Patient Matching and Transparency in Certified Health IT (MATCH IT) Act of 2025. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Bill Foster (D-IL) introduced MATCH IT Act of 2025, which is similar to the MATCH IT Act of 2024 presented by the House Ways and Means Committee to the House Subcommittee last December 2024.
The goal of the bipartisan MATCH IT Act of 2025 is to enhance patient safety and privacy by avoiding patient misidentification and offering interoperability without burdening companies and health systems. It also aims to develop standardized patient demographic elements included in certified health IT products and set up an incognito, voluntary system to determine patient match rates throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
The MATCH IT Act of 2025 deals with the problem of patient mismatching without needing a national patient identifier. The Secretary of the HHS needs to confer with healthcare organizations, health IT vendors, EHR vendors, patient groups, as well as other health industry stakeholders to create definitions and standards for precise patient matching, monitor patient match rates, and record enhancements of patient matching eventually.
According to Rep. Kelly, patient misidentification has resulted in unnecessary costs, healthcare mistakes, and patient fatalities. The MATCH IT Act of 2025 can help to enhance interoperability among health care systems and minimize patient matching errors while safeguarding patient privacy.
The MATCH IT Act of 2025 is supported by some industry organizations such as the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the American College of Physicians (ACP), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), as well as health systems, medical device companies, and other healthcare suppliers. However, it is unknown whether the House and Senate will support the MATCH It Act enough to be passed into law.
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