[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 756 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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.
            ``(2) Implementation.--
                    ``(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;
                            ``(ii) such database--
                                    ``(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).
                                 <all>