Fewer health exchanges report information blocking: ONC
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES — Information blocking in United States healthcare is declining — but it has not disappeared. A new federal data brief from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) shows measurable progress since 2019, alongside enforcement gaps that leave the majority of incidents unreported, Healthcare Dive reports.
Blocking by health exchanges falls sharply
The ONC data brief, released July 2, 2026, found that 71% of health information exchanges (HIEs) reported experiencing information blocking in 2025, down from 91% in 2019. Developer blocking fell from 91% to 62% over the same period, while hospital and health system blocking declined from 58% to 50%.
“No one — not a doctor, not a hospital, and not an EHR vendor — should be allowed to hoard health information for their own benefit,” said Dr. Thomas Keane, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Despite the overall decline, only 22% of organizations experiencing developer blocking submitted a complaint to the ONC portal, and just 10% of those facing provider blocking did the same.
The low reporting rate points to a structural gap between the scale of blocking behavior and the enforcement pipeline available to federal regulators.
Refusals fall, but fee tactics persist
Outright refusal by IT developers dropped from 52% in 2019 to 27% in 2025, and provider outright refusals fell from 52% to 31%. But subtler forms have proved more durable.
Unreasonable pricing by developers held at 59%, and strategic affiliations among providers sat steady at 42% since 2023.
According to the ONC data brief, “Deterring the small group of actors who may be engaging in potential information blocking practices could make a substantial impact on improving information exchange activity.”
About one in three organizations experiencing IT company blocking said the behavior was routine, while one in five described hospital or health system blocking as frequent.
Enforcement tools are in play: developers found to be blocking risk losing ONC health IT certification, and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) can levy significant fines under the 21st Century Cures Act.
For healthcare outsourcing providers, the ONC findings carry direct operational weight. Offshore teams managing prior authorization workflows, health information exchange connectivity, EHR integration, and payer-provider data pipelines work within the exact infrastructure where blocking most commonly occurs — and must stay current on compliance postures as enforcement escalates under the current administration.
Outsourcing partners operating in these data flows offer health systems a compliance-adjacent advantage: dedicated teams monitoring interoperability standards, managing FHIR-based integration layers, and flagging claims failures that could constitute information blocking under ONC’s definitions.
