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AHA today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services not to establish a national directory of health care providers and services (NDH) at this time.
 
“The AHA shares CMS’ goals to improve patient access to provider information and to facilitate health information exchange and data reporting,” the association wrote. “We appreciate the commitment CMS has invested in striving to meet these objectives. However, we are concerned that adding one more provider directory requirement will not support patients in accessing the information they need about their care providers. In fact, adding an additional data source without sufficiently addressing how or why it differs from the myriad provider directories already in existence could further complicate patients’ ability to access accurate information. Meanwhile, such a requirement would add considerable, duplicative burden on providers. Additionally, we have significant reservations about the current state of readiness of the essential technology needed for a centralized data hub such as the NDH.”