AMA advocacy win: New policies boost interoperability for physicians

Thanks to years of American Medical Association (AMA) advocacy, physician practices will soon benefit from long-overdue federal reforms that make sharing patient data faster, easier, and more complete—without extra logins, endless clicking, or expensive add-ons.

New federal interoperability agreements require all participating electronic health records (EHRs) to connect directly to national data-sharing networks approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. These systems must now deliver real-time, full patient information, including clinical notes, images, and medication lists that physicians actually use in care, rather than the basic data fields that are now available.

“We’re finally moving past the days of chasing down records and critical patient details. Large institutions and small practices alike struggle with the lack of interoperability in patient records,” said AMA President Bobby Mukkamala, M.D. “Physicians will be able to quickly see what tests have been conducted and what treatments recommended. We can decrease the cost of care by not repeating tests.”

The new policies call for:

• Real-time data exchange: EHRs must support seamless access to full medical records, including unstructured data such as PDFs and images.
• Automatic encounter notifications: Practices will get alerts within 24 hours when their patients go to the emergency department, are hospitalized, or see another provider, giving them a chance to follow up quickly.
• Fewer login barriers for patients: Patients will be able to present digital IDs or QR codes at check-in, allowing outside records to flow directly into the EHRs without creating new portal accounts.
• Smart visit summaries: Patients will receive structured summaries of their visits, ready to take home, without creating extra log-ins.

In day-to-day practice, these changes could prevent duplicate lab orders when a patient recently had testing done elsewhere, catch medication changes made during a specialist visit, or intervene early after an ER discharge. Practices will be notified within 24 hours when their patients visit the emergency department or see another clinician, paving the way for coordinated care.

“These upgrades mean fewer phone calls and portal chases. These changes remove barriers to data sharing and integrate tools directly into the workflows of everyday medicine. We’re grateful that Secretary Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services made these changes that will close care gaps for our patients,” Mukkamala said.

The AMA is pushing vendors to deliver these capabilities in a way that works in the small-practice environment: streamlined click paths, filterable alerts so physicians see only what matters, clear labeling of patient-submitted data, and no extra fees for accessing unstructured content such as PDFs or images. Physicians should start conversations with their vendors now—confirming timelines for 24-hour encounter alerts, support for updated connection capabilities, and patient identity verification without new portal accounts. By translating policy into workflow, these interoperability changes can move from the rulebook to real relief for front-line care teams.

*****

The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care.  The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.