42 U.S.C. § 1306 — Disclosure of information in possession of Social Security Administration or Department of Health and Human Services

submitted 91 years ago by ch. 531 to r/title-42-THE-PUBLIC-HEALTH-AND-WELFARE · 1,316 words · no verdicts yet

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Disclosure of information in possession of Social Security Administration or Department of Health and Human Services. restricts disclosure of specified Social Security and health-program information.

(a) Disclosure prohibited; exceptions. (1) No return, part of a return, file, record, report, paper, or information covered by this section may be disclosed except as the applicable agency’s regulations allow or federal law otherwise allows. This includes returns sent to the agency head by the Internal Revenue Commissioner and material obtained by the agency or by another person from the agency. A violator commits a felony and may be fined up to $10,000 for each violation, imprisoned up to five years, or both. (2) “Applicable agency” means the Social Security Administration for material it receives, obtains, or discloses, and HHS for material it receives, obtains, or discloses. (b) Requests. The agency may comply with authorized information requests and service requests, subject to limits needed to avoid undue interference with its duties, if the requester agrees to pay an amount set by the agency head that does not exceed the furnishing cost. Payment may be in advance or reimbursement and goes into the Treasury as a special deposit to reimburse the supplying unit’s appropriations and specified trust-fund spending authority. Parent-locating requests under part D of subchapter IV must be handled and paid for as that part provides. (c) Cost reimbursement. Despite title 5 sections 552 and 552a or other law, the Commissioner or Secretary may require the full cost when information is requested to help an employee-benefit-plan interested party administer a plan or for another purpose not directly related to the relevant program. (d) Research requests. If the Commissioner receives a request about whether a person is alive or deceased for epidemiological or similar research that the Commissioner and HHS Secretary find may serve a national health interest, and the requester pays and follows safeguards and rerelease limits, the Commissioner must comply unless a contract under section 405(r) forbids it. (e) Public inspection. The Secretary must provide State agencies operating subchapter XIX programs, and subject to the subsection’s limits must make publicly accessible, official reports about subchapters XVIII and XIX operations: (1) contractor performance reviews and formal evaluations, including follow-ups; (2) comparative contractor evaluations; and (3) formal evaluations of service providers, including follow-ups, without identifying patients, health-care practitioners, or other individuals. (f) Review. The Secretary or State agency may not publish such a report until the evaluated contractor or provider has a reasonable chance, no more than 60 days, to review and comment. The Secretary need not include a deficiency or improper practice known to have been fully corrected within 60 days after being reported. (g) Treasury agreement. The Commissioner must agree with the Treasury Secretary that, when Treasury supplies section 6103(k)(15) information about a person, the Commissioner will say whether that person receives disability insurance or supplemental security income benefits, including specified State supplements; that safeguards will limit use to deciding whether tax receivables are excluded from qualified tax-collection contracts under section 6306(d)(3)(E); and that Treasury will pay all costs, including systems and administrative costs.

the actual law source: uscode.house.gov ↗public domain

(a) Disclosure prohibited; exceptions

(1)

No disclosure of any return or portion of a return (including information returns and other written statements) filed with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue under title VIII of the Social Security Act or under subchapter E of chapter 1 or subchapter A of chapter 9 of the Internal Revenue Code [of 1939], or under regulations made under authority thereof, which has been transmitted to the head of the applicable agency by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, or of any file, record, report, or other paper, or any information, obtained at any time by the head of the applicable agency or by any officer or employee of the applicable agency in the course of discharging the duties of the head of the applicable agency under this chapter, and no disclosure of any such file, record, report, or other paper, or information, obtained at any time by any person from the head of the applicable agency or from any officer or employee of the applicable agency, shall be made except as the head of the applicable agency may by regulations prescribe and except as otherwise provided by Federal law. Any person who shall violate any provision of this section shall be deemed guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000 for each occurrence of a violation, or by imprisonment not exceeding 5 years, or both.

(2)

For purposes of this subsection and subsection (b), the term “applicable agency” means—

(A)

the Social Security Administration, with respect to matter transmitted to or obtained by such Administration or matter disclosed by such Administration, or

(B)

the Department of Health and Human Services, with respect to matter transmitted to or obtained by such Department or matter disclosed by such Department.

(b) Requests for information and services

Requests for information, disclosure of which is authorized by regulations prescribed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, and requests for services, may, subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the head of the applicable agency to avoid undue interference with his functions under this chapter, be complied with if the agency, person, or organization making the request agrees to pay for the information or services requested in such amount, if any (not exceeding the cost of furnishing the information or services), as may be determined by the head of the applicable agency. Payments for information or services furnished pursuant to this section shall be made in advance or by way of reimbursement, as may be requested by the head of the applicable agency, and shall be deposited in the Treasury as a special deposit to be used to reimburse the appropriations (including authorizations to make expenditures from the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund) for the unit or units of the applicable agency which furnished the information or services. Notwithstanding the preceding provisions of this subsection, requests for information made pursuant to the provisions of part D of subchapter IV of this chapter for the purpose of using Federal records for locating parents shall be complied with and the cost incurred in providing such information shall be paid for as provided in such part D of subchapter IV.

Notwithstanding sections 552 and 552a of title 5 or any other provision of law, whenever the Commissioner of Social Security or the Secretary determines that a request for information is made in order to assist a party in interest (as defined in section 1002 of title 29) with respect to the administration of an employee benefit plan (as so defined), or is made for any other purpose not directly related to the administration of the program or programs under this chapter to which such information relates, such Commissioner or Secretary may require the requester to pay the full cost, as determined by such Commissioner or Secretary, of providing such information.

(d) Compliance with requests

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, in any case in which—

(1)

information regarding whether an individual is shown on the records of the Commissioner of Social Security as being alive or deceased is requested from the Commissioner for purposes of epidemiological or similar research which the Commissioner in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services finds may reasonably be expected to contribute to a national health interest, and

(2)

the requester agrees to reimburse the Commissioner for providing such information and to comply with limitations on safeguarding and rerelease or redisclosure of such information as may be specified by the Commissioner,

the Commissioner shall comply with such request, except to the extent that compliance with such request would constitute a violation of the terms of any contract entered into under section 405(r) of this title.

(e) Public inspection

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section the Secretary shall make available to each State agency operating a program under subchapter XIX and shall, subject to the limitations contained in subsection (e),1 make available for public inspection in readily accessible form and fashion, the following official reports (not including, however, references to any internal tolerance rules and practices that may be contained therein, internal working papers or other informal memoranda) dealing with the operation of the health programs established by subchapters XVIII and XIX—

(1)

individual contractor performance reviews and other formal evaluations of the performance of carriers, intermediaries, and State agencies, including the reports of follow-up reviews;

(2)

comparative evaluations of the performance of such contractors, including comparisons of either overall performance or of any particular aspect of contractor operation; and

(3)

program validation survey reports and other formal evaluations of the performance of providers of services, including the reports of follow-up reviews, except that such reports shall not identify individual patients, individual health care practitioners, or other individuals.

(f) Opportunity for review

No report described in subsection (e) shall be made public by the Secretary or the State subchapter XIX agency until the contractor or provider of services whose performance is being evaluated has had a reasonable opportunity (not exceeding 60 days) to review such report and to offer comments pertinent parts of which may be incorporated in the public report; nor shall the Secretary be required to include in any such report information with respect to any deficiency (or improper practice or procedures) which is known by the Secretary to have been fully corrected, within 60 days of the date such deficiency was first brought to the attention of such contractor or provider of services, as the case may be.

(g) Agreement with Secretary of the Treasury

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the Commissioner of Social Security shall enter into an agreement with the Secretary of the Treasury under which—

(1)

if the Secretary provides the Commissioner with the information described in section 6103(k)(15) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 with respect to any individual, the Commissioner shall indicate to the Secretary as to whether such individual receives disability insurance benefits under section 423 of this title or supplemental security income benefits under subchapter XVI of this chapter (including State supplementary payments of the type referred to in section 1382e(a) of this title or payments of the type described in section 212(a) of Public Law 93–66 [42 U.S.C. 1382 note]);

(2)

appropriate safeguards are included to assure that the indication described in paragraph (1) will be used solely for the purpose of determining if tax receivables involving such individual are not eligible for collection pursuant to a qualified tax collection contract by reason of section 6306(d)(3)(E) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; and

(3)

the Secretary shall pay the Commissioner of Social Security the full costs (including systems and administrative costs) of providing the indication described in paragraph (1).

Source credit: (Aug. 14, 1935, ch. 531, title XI, § 1106, as added Aug. 10, 1939, ch. 666, title VIII, § 802, 53 Stat. 1398; amended Aug. 28, 1950, ch. 809, title IV, § 403(d), 64 Stat. 559; Pub. L. 85–840, title VII, § 701, Aug. 28, 1958, 72 Stat. 1055; Pub. L. 89–97, title I, § 108(c), title III, § 340, July 30, 1965, 79 Stat. 339, 411; Pub. L. 90–248, title I, § 168, title II, § 241(c)(1), Jan. 2, 1968, 81 Stat. 875, 917; Pub. L. 92–603, title II, § 249C(a), Oct. 30, 1972, 86 Stat. 1428; Pub. L. 93–647, § 101(d), Jan. 4, 1975, 88 Stat. 2360; Pub. L. 97–35, title XXII, § 2207, Aug. 13, 1981, 95 Stat. 838; Pub. L. 98–369, div. B, title VI, § 2663(j)(2)(D)(ii), (l), July 18, 1984, 98 Stat. 1170, 1171; Pub. L. 103–296, title I, § 108(b)(2)–(5), title III, §§ 311(a), 313(a), Aug. 15, 1994, 108 Stat. 1481, 1482, 1525, 1530; Pub. L. 116–260, div. N, title II, § 283(a), div. FF, title I, § 102(a), Dec. 27, 2020, 134 Stat. 1984, 3083.)

history & why it existsrecord from the source credit

1935Enacted · Act of Aug. 14, 1935, ch. 531 · 53 Stat. 1398
1950Amended · Act of Aug. 28, 1950, ch. 809 · 64 Stat. 559
1958Amended · Pub. L. 85-840 · 72 Stat. 1055
1965Amended · Pub. L. 89-97 · 79 Stat. 339, 411
1968Amended · Pub. L. 90-248 · 81 Stat. 875, 917
1972Amended · Pub. L. 92-603 · 86 Stat. 1428
1975Amended · Pub. L. 93-647 · 88 Stat. 2360
1981Amended · Pub. L. 97-35 · 95 Stat. 838
1984Amended · Pub. L. 98-369 · 98 Stat. 1170, 1171
1994Amended · Pub. L. 103-296 · 108 Stat. 1481, 1482, 1525, 1530
2020Amended · Pub. L. 116-260 · 134 Stat. 1984, 3083

A history note hasn’t been published yet. The record shows enactment by ch. 531 on 1935-08-14.

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