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The AMA supports CMS's revised guidance addressing payer compliance with prior authorization transparency requirements under the 2024 Interoperability and Prior Authorization final rule. The American Medical Association (AMA) has publicly endorsed updated guidance from the Centers for Medicare &...
The ONC's refreshed TEFCA fact sheet shows Qualified Health Information Networks now connect over 150 million unique patients and 1.8 million clinicians, underscoring rapid national scaled exchange under the Trusted Exchange Framework. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)...
The portal consolidates TEFCA's governance details, designated Qualified Health Information Networks, and the latest Common Agreement version for nationwide health information exchange. The Sequoia Project's Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) portal for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common...
The investigation examines whether Epic's health IT dominance and data-sharing policies violate antitrust laws, with potential implications for interoperability and EHR market competition. The U.S.
By embedding structured clinical terminology directly into CPT codes, AMA aims to accelerate electronic prior authorization and cut administrative burden at the point of care. The American Medical Association has launched a new interoperability initiative focused on mapping structured clinical...
The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement has crossed a major adoption threshold, signaling that the national interoperability network is moving from pilot to production scale. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced that TEFCA — the...
HHS/ONC's fifth Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability rulemaking targets certification program efficiency and continued information-blocking enforcement improvements. HHS and ONC have proposed the HTI-5 rule, the latest in the Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability rulemaking...
CMS's official FAQ spells out exactly what payers must do under CMS-0057-F — from 72-hour urgent decision windows to the nine public metrics due on websites by March 31, 2026. CMS has published a detailed FAQ on the Prior Authorization API requirements established in the 2024 CMS Interoperability...
New federal oversight measures — including third-party audits of TEFCA participants — signal ONC is shifting from network-building to network-accountability mode. ONC has announced a package of oversight measures designed to strengthen governance of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common...
With HTI-4 finalized on August 4, 2025, ONC has now closed out four major rulemakings that together reshape certification criteria, information blocking, TEFCA, and prescription workflows. ONC's certification program regulations page now reflects a completed four-rule cycle stretching from early...
Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, CHIP, and Marketplace payers must deploy four new FHIR APIs and compress prior authorization timelines by 2026–2027, reshaping payer-provider-patient data exchange across the industry. CMS has finalized the Interoperability and Prior Authorization rule (CMS-0057-F),...
ONC's certification framework — the gatekeeper for federally recognized health IT — is updating criteria, surveillance rules, and standards versioning processes that every EHR and API developer must track. The ONC Health IT Certification Program is the federal mechanism through which health...
As CMS's LEAD model extends value-based care timelines, health systems that lack real-time post-acute data will find themselves structurally disadvantaged on cost and quality performance. CMS's LEAD (Longitudinal Episode-based Alternative Payment) model reshapes how accountable care organizations...
The 2024 CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization final rule sets hard compliance deadlines for payers to implement FHIR APIs that streamline prior authorization and cross-payer data exchange — with a key HIPAA carve-out clearing the path. CMS released the 2024 Interoperability and Prior...
The agency is formalizing its ambitions in health-IT modernization by creating a dedicated organizational unit to lead interoperability initiatives and digital product development. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has established a new health technology office designed to...
The move from hybrid to electronic clinical data systems reporting aims to streamline data exchange and align with industry digital quality measurement trends. NCQA is transitioning the HEDIS® Transitions of Care (TRC) measure from its current hybrid reporting methodology to a fully electronic...
Panelists from state HIEs shared how health information exchange networks are being used to support social determinants of health screening and referral workflows, informing future innovation. During a Civitas Networks for Health event, an expert panel examined how states are utilizing Health...
KFF analysis reveals significant variation in insurer denial rates and transparency gaps for prior authorization requests issued in 2025. KFF found that health insurers denied 12% to 18% of standard prior authorization requests in 2025, with notable variation across different insurers.
Voting is open through September 14, 2026, for the HL7 ballot cycle covering FHIR implementation guides and other consensus standards. HL7 International opened its September 2026 consensus ballot cycle on August 14, 2026, inviting ballot pool members to vote on proposed FHIR implementation guides...
HHS seeks to streamline health forms for unaccompanied alien children while adding provisions for limited health information sharing with DHS to ensure continuity of care. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is proposing to restructure its...
The final rule updates Medicare hospital payment rates for FY 2027, adopts new health IT standards, and modifies quality reporting requirements for acute care and long-term care hospitals. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a final rule revising the Medicare hospital...
The new HL7 FHIR Implementation Guide enables scalable, interoperable consent management across healthcare data exchange networks. The HL7 FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST) has released the Scalable Consent Management Implementation Guide to address growing challenges in consent enforcement across...
CMS introduces a voluntary interoperability framework encouraging gradual adoption while establishing baseline technical requirements for network participation, raising concerns about equitable access for resource-constrained providers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has...
The proposal merges two public health forms into a single Onsite Health Intervention Form and adds limited sharing of health data with DHS to ensure continuity of care for unaccompanied refugee minors. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), through its Office of Refugee Resettlement...
A working viewer for International Patient Summary documents highlights both the maturity of the IPS spec and the remaining UX friction teams face when rendering FHIR-native clinical summaries. The International Patient Summary (IPS) Implementation Guide defines a standardized, minimal set of key...
Industry veteran Paul Wilder argues that the interoperability ecosystem is showing early signs of eroding participant trust — and that the next phase of data exchange will depend on fixing that foundation. Writing in MedCity News, Paul L.
HL7's fourth normative ballot of FHIR R6 is the consensus gate that will define the stable, binding specification healthcare-IT teams must eventually certify against. HL7 International has opened an out-of-cycle Normative ballot for FHIR Release 6 (v6.0.0-ballot4), with voting and comments...
The sweeping annual PFS proposed rule touches Medicare payment rates, the Promoting Interoperability Program, Quality Payment Program, Medicare Shared Savings Program, and new IRA drug-rebate codifications — with a September 14 comment deadline. CMS published its CY 2027 Physician Fee Schedule...
Brendan Keeler contends the EHR Association isn't just venting about HTI-5 — it's methodically constructing an administrative record to challenge ONC's rulemaking authority in court. Interoperability analyst Brendan Keeler argues that the EHR Association's (EHRA) sustained public commentary...
Common Agreement Version 2 marks TEFCA's most significant structural upgrade yet, embedding FHIR API exchange, a permanent QHIN-led Governing Council, and new trust and accountability rules directly into the national interoperability framework. The Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) for TEFCA...
A rare moment of regulatory visibility gives health-IT teams a structured view of what's coming — and what's being undone — across interoperability and HIPAA access. Brendan Keeler's July 2026 analysis unpacks a newly visible HHS/ONC regulatory pipeline, identifying four distinct actions that...
The sweeping CY2027 outpatient payment proposed rule touches reimbursement rates, quality reporting, prior authorization expansion, and a first-of-its-kind request for input on making hospital price transparency data more machine-comparable — with comments due August 31. CMS published its...
Brendan Keeler's holiday-week roundup covers TEFCA's new oversight posture, a rumored information-blocking action against Epic, and the state of interoperability heading into summer 2026. In his Fourth of July edition, Keeler surveys the interoperability landscape with characteristic irreverence.
The National Coordinator has approved the 2026 Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) standards, allowing certified health IT developers to adopt newer versions of key interoperability standards without waiting for a full rulemaking cycle. ONC has announced the standards approved through...
New operational guidance helps providers, payers, and developers implement machine-readable consent in health data exchange workflows — a long-standing friction point for nationwide interoperability. The Sequoia Project released new guidance on June 30, 2026 designed to help healthcare...
The federal health IT advisory committee's latest session signals where ONC's policy attention is focused heading into the second half of 2026. The Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) convened on May 7, 2026, to examine three intersecting themes: healthcare affordability,...
A new HHS action extends TEFCA's reach to give patients more direct, secure access to their own health records — a concrete step toward the network's individual-access ambitions. HHS announced an expansion of secure health record access through TEFCA, the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common...
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's approach to centralizing and digitizing reference medical policies into reusable FHIR Questionnaires offers a concrete playbook for payers and vendors scaling prior authorization under Da Vinci DTR. The HL7 Da Vinci Project's June 2026 Community Roundtable...
A new designated expert role for information blocking enforcement has arrived with no clear definition of qualifications, scope, or process — including from the expert themselves. ONC has established a formal "Information Blocking Expert" designation under the information blocking framework, but...
A new integrative review maps the legal, technical, and governance barriers to deploying granular, revocable patient consent for secondary health data use across Europe — and proposes a three-stage architecture to address them. Secondary use of health data — for research, innovation, and public...
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