STAT+: HHS will not enforce gender and sexual orientation requirements for medical records
HHS will not enforce standards that medical records be able to capture patients’ sexual orientation and gender identity.
The changes to medical records hit federal systems first. In February, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services removed sexual orientation and gender identity questions from enrollment forms for Medicare beneficiaries, and the U.S. DOGE Service said it had removed gender identity from the personal information pages of Veterans Health Administration patients.
Now, the Trump administration’s efforts to strip these demographics from patient forms have reached the private sector.
On March 21, a lesser-known office within the Department of Health and Human Services quietly announced it would not enforce requirements that electronic health records have fields to record and exchange patients’ sexual orientation and gender identity. The new standards, which have been in development for several years, were set to be enforced by January 1 next year.
