Summary#
The SCREENS Act would amend the Public Health Service Act and the Social Security Act; it is not law. Its stated goal is to make cancer-screening recommendations usable in health technology. It would require a national framework and, later, certified health technology that can use it.
- Within one year of enactment, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology must create the framework in consultation with named federal health officials, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and key oncology stakeholders, and update it annually.
- The recommendations must be public in machine-readable form and interoperable with either the mCODE dataset or USCDI.
- Within five years, the HHS Secretary must use rulemaking to make technology certification depend on functionality that uses the framework to determine whether an individual has completed recommended screenings. That functionality must use only the minimum necessary patient data and meet specified privacy requirements.
- Within two years, the HHS Secretary must issue guidance encouraging certain health plans to integrate the technology and let consumers opt into certified electronic health record technology with the required functionality.
- The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute may support related research, pilot projects, implementation, and information-sharing; the bill does not require it to do so.
What it means for you#
- Patients: If the certification rules take effect, certified health technology must be able to determine a patient’s status against recommended screenings. It must provide clear information about data use and support patients accessing, reviewing, and requesting changes to their health information, in line with applicable privacy laws.
- Patients and health plans: The bill requires guidance encouraging Medicaid managed care organizations, Medicare Advantage plans, and exchange-qualified health plans to integrate the technology and enable consumers to opt into certified EHR technology. It does not require plans to follow the guidance.
- Health technology certification programs and vendors: The Secretary must make this functionality a condition of certification and continued certification through rulemaking. The bill does not itself set the detailed technical rules.
- Screening and coverage: The bill does not require patients to get screened, change screening recommendations, or require health plans to cover a screening.
Money#
No cost estimate appears in the bill. No publicly available information.
- The bill assigns duties to federal officials but does not state how many staff or how much funding they will need.
- The certification requirement could mean changes to health technology; any resulting costs are not estimated.
- The bill allows the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to support specified activities but does not provide a specific appropriation or require the Institute to fund them.
What is unclear#
- The bill does not define “high-risk factors” or specify which “key oncology stakeholders” must be consulted.
- It does not explain how the framework will handle differences among recommendations or how changes will be managed beyond annual updates.
- It leaves technical and operational details to later rulemaking and does not set a detailed process for correcting patient information.
- It is unclear how many health plans will act on the guidance, since the bill encourages integration rather than requiring it.
Case for#
- A shared, machine-readable framework could make screening recommendations easier for different health technologies to use.
- Interoperability with mCODE or USCDI could help technology systems exchange relevant information.
- The certification condition could make screening-status functionality more consistent in certified technology.
- Privacy requirements limit data use and require clear information and ways for patients to access and request changes to their health information.
Case against#
- The bill relies on later rulemaking for important technical and operational details, so the actual patient experience is not specified in the bill.
- The certification condition could take up to five years after enactment, while the framework must be established within one year.
- Health-plan guidance is not binding, so plan participation may vary.
- The framework relies on patient data such as age, sex, and high-risk factors, but the bill does not explain how incomplete or incorrect data would be handled.