Medicare data now available for quality research—but who gets access?
H.R. 4331 — Access to Claims Data Act · Filed by John Joyce (R-PA) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 10, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a process by January 1, 2026, allowing clinical data registries and clinician-led organizations to request Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP claims data to link with clinical outcomes, conduct quality assessments, improve provider performance, and publish research—without requiring them to meet the usual regulatory qualifications. The data would be provided at cost-recovery fees.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to expand access to Medicare/Medicaid claims data for clinical registries and quality-improvement organizations, removing regulatory barriers to support research and provider performance assessment.
What the text implies
- Lowering regulatory barriers for data access may accelerate the consolidation of clinical data into fewer large registry platforms, potentially concentrating market power among dominant data aggregators.
- Deidentified claims data published in research may still allow re-identification of individuals or providers through linkage with other datasets, creating privacy risks not explicitly addressed in the bill.
The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
clinical data registry operators; health IT vendors supporting registries; academic medical centers with registry infrastructure