Health Insurers Get Reprieve From Medicare’s Data Exchange Rules

Health insurance plans won’t be required to implement new rules aimed at speeding up data sharing among health-care payers until a future rule establishes a standard format for data exchange, the Medicare agency said.

The notice, filed Wednesday in the Federal Register, concerns the payer-to-payer information exchange provisions of a May 2020 interoperability final rule, which is intended to push providers and insurers to improve the flow of information through the health-care system.

The payer-to-payer provisions were set to take effect Jan. 1, 2022.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “will not take any action against payers should ...