Social Security expands electronic health record sharing to speed up disability claims adjudication
Wesley Lapointe for The Washington Post via Getty Images
ByChristian Robles,
Technology Reporter, Nextgov/FCW
August 18, 2026 04:00 PM ET
A health data sharing superhighway “allows SSA to access complete, structured medical records within seconds or minutes for claimants, helping to significantly reduce disability claim processing times,” an agency official told Nextgov/FCW.
The Social Security Administration is looking to speed up disability claims adjudication by allowing Americans to consent to their medical providers sending the agency digital copies of their health records through a data sharing superhighway.
In April, Epic — the largest electronic health record vendor for U.S. hospitals — announcedthat its health system customers are connected to SSA through the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, or TEFCA. Through that superhighway, dozens of hospitals and clinics can send digital medical records to SSA, eliminating the need to fax documents to...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to nextgov.com. To see the full text click HERE