Bipartisan Senators Reintroduce MATCH IT Act to Streamline Americans’ Health Care
One of the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was the introduction of a national patient identifier – A unique identifier for all Americans that would allow medical records to be reliably linked with the right individuals. The mismatching of health records continues to be a problem in healthcare as it was back in 1996 when HIPAA was enacted.
The HIPAA Journal has been contacted by a patient who shares the same name and date of birth with another patient at the same hospital and has experienced multiple cases of mismatching her records with the records of the other patient of the same name, resulting in an unauthorized disclosure of her records and has put the safety of both patients at risk. This is far from an isolated example.
It is common for medical records to be overlaid, where multiple patients’ records are merged into a single record. This can result in an unauthorized disclosure of health data that is prohibited under HIPAA, and more seriously, can put patient safety at risk. A 2016 report in the Boston Globe identified 14 instances of the right procedures performed on the wrong patient as a result of patient mismatching in Massachusetts alone.
When a patient presents at a hospital, a search is conducted to identify whether the patient exists in the system, and if no records are found, a new record is created. Search and data entry errors can easily lead to the creation of duplicate records, and the duplication of records can prove costly. In 2024, Black Book Research found that repeated medical care due to duplicate health records costs an average of $1,950 per patient (inpatient stay) and over $1,750 per ED visit. The study also found that 35% of all denied claims resulted from inaccurate patient identification or information, costing an average hospital $2.5 million in 2020 and the healthcare industry more than $6.7 billion each year.
Mismatching incidents are costly, result in privacy violations, inhibit secure health information exchange, and can result in permanent harm being caused to patients, and in some instances, mismatching of health records has proved fatal. A national patient identifier could help to solve the problem; and despite it being a requirement of HIPAA, Congress has repeatedly prohibited any federal funding being allocated for work on developing or adopting a unique, national patient identifier due to privacy concerns. If all records are tied to a single identifier, an individual’s entire health history could be compromised, and a unique patient identifier could facilitate tracking, leading to discrimination against individuals for work, insurance, credit, and opportunities, with that discrimination potentially lasting an entire lifetime. There have been many attempts to get the ban lifted but all have failed, with Congress erring on the side of caution and continuing to ban federal funding from being used for a national patient identifier.
This week, a bipartisan pair of senators have taken steps to address the problem of patient mismatching with the introduction of the Patient Matching and Transparency in Certified Health IT (MATCH IT) Act of 2025. The MATCH IT Act of 2025 was introduced by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Bill Foster (D-IL) and follows a similar bill, the MATCH IT Act of 2024, which was referred by the House Ways and Means Committee to the House Subcommittee in December 2024 before the last Congress wrapped up. The Act has now been reintroduced in the 119th Congress.
The bipartisan MATCH IT Act of 2025 seeks to improve patient safety and privacy by decreasing patient misidentification and promoting interoperability without increasing the burdens on providers and health systems. The MATCH IT Act of 2025 will also “improve standardization of patients’ demographic elements entered into certified health IT products, and create an anonymous, voluntary system to measure patient match rates across the healthcare ecosystem.”
The MATCH IT Act of 2025 addresses the issue of patient mismatching without requiring a national patient identifier, and calls for the Secretary of the HHS to consult with healthcare providers, EHR vendors, health IT vendors, patient groups, and other healthcare stakeholders to develop “a definition and standards for accurate and precise patient matching to track patient match rates and document improvements of patient matching over time.”
In addition to the creation of an industry standard definition for the term ‘patient match rate,’ the MATCH IT Act requires the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP), formerly the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), to develop a standard data set to improve patient matching, data standards in United States core data for interoperability, and to incorporate a minimum data set for patient matching as a requirement for health IT.
“For too long, patient misidentification has put Americans within the U.S. health care system at risk. Patient matching errors [have] led to unnecessary expenses, medical mistakes, and even patient deaths,” said Rep. Kelly. “This bipartisan legislation works to improve interoperability between health care systems and decrease these fixable matching errors, all while protecting patient privacy.”
“I’m proud to introduce this legislation to help reduce instances of patient misidentification that cause thousands of unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. This legislation would promote the interoperability of patient matching systems, which would protect patients and decrease burdens on health care providers,” said Rep. Foster. “I also look forward to continuing to work with Congressman Kelly to eliminate barriers to unique patient identifiers so we can prevent medical errors and ensure patients receive the correct treatment.”
The MATCH IT Act of 2025 has the support of several industry associations including the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the American College of Physicians (ACP), as well as health systems, medical device manufacturers, and other healthcare vendors, although it remains to be seen if the MATCH It Act can gain sufficient support in the House and Senate to be signed into law.
