Review - S 4054 Introduced -Health Care Cybersecurity

Earlier this month, Sen Warner (D,VA) introduced S 4054, the Health Care Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2024. The bill would prohibit accelerated Medicare payments to hospitals and medical service providers with significant cashflow problems due to cyber-attacks unless they meet ‘minimum cybersecurity standards’. There is no new funding provided in this legislation.

Moving Forward

Warner is a member of the Senate Finance Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there would be Republican opposition to this bill because it would effectively add cybersecurity regulations for the medical sector. I am not sure that there would be sufficient support to see this bill favorably considered. Regardless, this bill would have no chance of being considered by the full Senate under regular order.

Commentary

While there is no mention of cybersecurity regulations in this bill, nor any mandate to develop such regulations, the phrase “meets minimum cybersecurity standards, as determined by the Secretary” effectively means that HHS would need to have regulations in place that define ‘minimum cybersecurity standards’ that the Secretary would use to restrict accelerated payments under these provisions. If the bill had specifically required HHS to promulgate such regulations, the bill would have come under the purview of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where Warner is not a member.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4054-introduced - subscription required.