AHIMA Advocacy — Take Action Today

Patient ID Week 2023 – Urge Congress to Repeal Section 510 in FY24 Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill
It’s Patient ID Week! Write to your members of Congress to ask that they repeal Section 510 of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bills. For four years, the US House of Representatives has removed the ban from its Labor-HHS appropriations bills. In FY22 and FY23, the US Senate also removed the language from its draft Labor-HHS appropriations bill. However, in final negotiations, the ban was reinserted each year before the final federal budget was passed by Congress and signed into law. Section 510 hurts patients and providers, lessens patient privacy and safety, and costs the healthcare system over $6.7 billion annually. Urge Congress to move forward with final removal of the ban in FY24.

Tell Us Your Patient ID Story
Tell us how you have been affected by the lack of a national strategy around patient identification. Do you work in healthcare and see the effects of patient misidentification? Have you or someone you know been personally misidentified in seeking healthcare? Have your results been misfiled or combined with the record of someone else with a similar name? Is your medical file incomplete because you visited multiple healthcare settings and the information has not been consolidated? Let us know your story!

Ask Congress to Urge CMS to Address Prior Authorization
The sponsors of the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act that was introduced last Congress have launched House and Senate sign-on letters to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) urging the agency to finalize a proposed prior authorization reform rule that closely aligns with this legislation.

Now is the time to reach out to ask your members of Congress to sign this letter to CMS to ensure prior authorization reform is prioritized and barriers to care are reduced. Join our campaign and ask your members of Congress to sign the letter!