Senators urge GAO to review risks due to patient record mismatching

Five senators recently asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine the costs and risks associated with mismatched patient records during the agency’s review of patient matching. The GAO is required by the 21st Century Cures Act to conduct an assessment on patient matching to protect patient privacy and security.

Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc. made their case in an October 3 letter to Gene L. Dodaro, the GAO comptroller general.

Patient matching can be complicated by the presence of duplicate medical records and incorrectly merged medical records. These mismatched records can have serious consequences such as inappropriate patient care and costlier patient care. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) released a survey on patient matching in January 2016. A total of 72% of respondents to AHIMA’s survey said they work on mitigating duplicate records on a weekly basis. Although patient matching errors often arise at registration, only 47% of respondents said they have a quality assurance step at registration or post-registration.

The senators asked the GAO to provide data on the prevalence of patient mismatching as well as make recommendations for methods that federal agencies such as the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) could develop to improve patient matching. The senators urged the ONC to consider developing a national patient matching strategy. However, legislation passed in 1998 banned HHS from spending any funds to create a national unique patient identifier standard unless specifically authorized by Congress.