S 756
112th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 756
To amend title XI of the Social Security Act to provide for
the public availability of Medicare claims data.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
April 7 (legislative day, April 5), 2011
Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mr. WYDEN) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
A BILL
To amend title XI of the Social Security Act to provide for
the public availability of Medicare claims data.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Medicare Data Access for Transparency
and Accountability Act'.
SEC. 2. PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF MEDICARE CLAIMS DATA.
(a) In General- Section 1128J of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.
1320a-7k) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(f) Public Availability of Medicare Claims Data-
`(1) IN GENERAL- The Secretary shall, to the extent consistent with
applicable information, privacy, security, and disclosure laws, including
the regulations promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 552a of title 5, United
States Code, make available to the public claims and payment data
of the Department of Health and Human Services related to title XVIII,
including data on payments made to any provider of services or supplier
under such title.
`(A) IN GENERAL- Not later than December 31, 2012, the Secretary
shall promulgate regulations to carry out this subsection.
`(B) REQUIREMENTS- The regulations promulgated under subparagraph
(A) shall ensure that--
`(i) the data described in paragraph (1) is made available to
the public through a searchable database that the public can access
at no cost;
`(I) includes the amount paid to each provider of services or
supplier under title XVIII, the items or services for which
such payment was made, and the location of the provider of services
or supplier;
`(II) is organized based on the specialty or the type of provider
of services or supplier involved;
`(III) is searchable based on the type of items or services
furnished; and
`(IV) includes a disclaimer that the aggregate data in the database
does not reflect on the quality of the items or services furnished
or of the provider of services or supplier who furnished the
items or services; and
`(iii) each provider of services or supplier in the database is
identified by a unique identifier that is available to the public
(such as the National Provider Identifier of the provider of services
or supplier).
`(C) SCOPE OF DATA- The database shall include data for fiscal year
2012, and each year fiscal year thereafter.'.
(b) Information Not Exempt Under the Freedom of Information Act- The
term `personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of
which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy',
as used in section 552(b)(6) of title 5, United States Code, does not
include the information required to be made available to the public
under section 1128J(f) of the Social Security Act, as added by subsection
(a).
END
