Ben Leonard reports:
Advocates of unique IDs to match patients to their health records may be close to lifting a decadeslong congressional ban on using federal funds to develop the system.
The effort, long mired in broader debates over patient privacy, gained steam this fall when the Senate for the first time left the ban out of a fiscal 2022 spending package. But its ultimate fate is still tied to uncertainties surrounding the appropriations process and an overdue report on the benefits and risks from the Department of Health and Human Services’ health information technology office that could influence the system’s design.