The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP)/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) included a new final Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability (HTI) rule within the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Inpatient Prospective Payment System final rule issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [refer to Washington Highlights, Aug. 8]. This rule finalized a subset of policies from the HTI-2 proposed rule [refer to Washington Highlights, July 12, 2024] and builds form the HTI-2 and HTI-3 final rules issued in December 2025 [refer to Washington Highlights, Dec. 20, 2024].
The policies in this rule focus on the ONC’s certification standards for health IT modules, including certified electronic health records technology (CEHRT) required for health care providers under various Medicare payment programs. Vendors of CEHRT will have to modify their products to now meet revised conditions for electronic prescribing and adopt new standards for real-time prescription benefit information sharing and electronic prior authorization for providers. More information can be found in the ASTP’s fact sheet on the rule (PDF).