Oregon Congressman Cliff Bentz has introduced legislation directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to bring its publicly available datasets together on a centralized website and account to Congress for how that information is maintained.
Bentz introduced the Public Access to HHS Health Data Act, H.R. 10616, on September 28, according to his office. The proposal targets a federal collection that his office describes as tens of thousands of datasets distributed across multiple websites, creating difficulties for people trying to locate healthcare information.
The bill would require HHS to report the number and types of datasets made available, how frequently they are updated and what barriers prevent additional information from being published. Those requirements would place the department’s publication practices before Congress alongside the proposed website.
“We all want to improve our healthcare system, and access to data is absolutely essential to these efforts,” Bentz said in the September 29 release. “My Public Access to HHS Health Data Act will help all groups more quickly access this essential information.”
The legislation enters a federal system that already maintains several public health-data portals. HHS operates HealthData.gov, while the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes information through Data.CMS.gov and its Provider Data Catalog. Those collections include provider enrollment, healthcare utilization, payments and information used in Medicare’s provider comparison tools.
HHS expanded its existing infrastructure in July 2025, introducing a departmentwide data inventory, a documentation standard and an open-data plan through a refresh of HealthData.gov. The department’s published plan identifies more complete inventories and standardized descriptions as priorities for improving access across its divisions.
The inventory describes both public and nonpublic data assets. Its entries identify information held by the department without necessarily providing public access to the underlying records. Bentz’s office describes his legislation as requiring a repository for publicly available datasets; the release does not specify whether HHS would expand an existing platform or establish a separate website.
Oregon maintains a substantial healthcare database through the Oregon Health Authority’s All Payer All Claims Reporting Program. Established in 2009, the program collects administrative records concerning insurance coverage, service costs and healthcare use among insured residents.
The database receives medical, dental and pharmacy claims, payment amounts, member demographics and provider information. Oregon law assigns the program several purposes, including comparing treatment costs and effectiveness, informing healthcare policy and supplying information to consumers and purchasers.
OHA publishes reports and dashboards drawn from those records and operates a separate process for requesting data. The agency reports using the database to review coordinated care organization payment rates and compare payments across insurance arrangements. Oregon State University used the same collection to examine the economic impact of athletic trainers in high schools.
Southern Oregon falls within the statewide program’s reach, while federal Medicare datasets include information on participating providers serving the region. The proposal described by Bentz’s office contains no separate Southern Oregon funding allocation or regional implementation program. It also does not describe a requirement for OHA to transfer Oregon’s database into the federal repository.
Health-data analysis also supports Oregon’s Medicaid enforcement work. The state Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigates and prosecutes provider fraud involving clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, licensed practitioners, in-home caregivers and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Oregon DOJ receives referrals from law enforcement agencies, coordinated care organizations, insurers, social service agencies and the public. Its enforcement team includes attorneys, investigators, auditors, data analysts and a nurse.
Federal investigators have pursued a separate effort to coordinate healthcare information. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced plans for a Health Care Fraud Data Fusion Center involving HHS’s Office of Inspector General, the FBI and other agencies. The initiative proposed combining investigative expertise with advanced analytics to identify emerging fraud schemes.
That announcement concerned information sharing for enforcement. Bentz’s release addresses public access and does not describe opening confidential investigative files through the proposed website.
HHS privacy guidance establishes two methods for de-identifying protected health information under HIPAA: a determination by a qualified expert or removal of specified identifiers under the Safe Harbor method, subject to additional conditions. Federal records requests also remain subject to Freedom of Information Act exemptions and exclusions.
Under the proposal outlined by Bentz’s office, HHS would pair centralized access with reports documenting the breadth of its published holdings, their update schedules and obstacles to further releases. The September 29 announcement did not specify an implementation budget or deadline.