II 112th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 756 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.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act.

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).