Take Action! Weigh in on Federal Surveys and Forms 2025-07-30
by Meghan Maury
Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
Note: The Take Action tab of DataIndex.us provides information about even more surveys, forms, evaluations, and records notices than are listed in your weekly newsletter.
Race, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity Changes
Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). This survey provides a holistic view of Medicare beneficiaries' social and medical risk factors and rich information on the relationship between these risk factors, healthcare utilization, and health outcomes, at a point in time and over time. CMS is revising the survey to change the question on sexual orientation, remove the question on gender identity, and remove the question on perceived discrimination, which was used to measure perceived discrimination from health care providers due to certain personal attributes, including race or ethnicity, language or accent, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, age, culture or religion, disability, or medical history.
Comments due Sept. 12.
Forms
Healthcare Competition Complaint Form. This form facilitates reporting by members of the public of complaints, concerns, or information regarding potential healthcare or drug company antitrust violations.
Comments due Sept. 8.
Notification of Intention To Strike or Picket at Any Health Care Institution. Under the NLRA, labor organizations must notify FMCS before engaging in any strike, picketing, or other concerted refusal to work at any health care institution. This form creates a formalized process for submitting that notification.
Comments due Sept. 8.
Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration. This form collects the information needed to fulfill the legal requirements for the issuance of an immigrant visa (IV). The information required on the form is limited to what is necessary for consular officers to determine the eligibility and classification of an individual seeking an IV to the United States. The listing indicates that the form is being revised, but it is unclear what revisions are being made.
Comments due Sept. 8.
NIFA Application Kit. The forms in the NIFA application kit are used to make award determinations for agricultural research. NIFA is proposing to revise the collection by adding a new “NIFA Disclosure of Foreign Relationships” form. This form will allow NIFA to perform legislatively mandated Due Diligence of Foreign Influence review of USDA's SBIR and STTR applicants.
Comments due Sept. 5.
Plan for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance-Title IV-E. Child welfare agencies requesting federal funding for foster care and adoption assistance - as well as for optional guardianship assistance, kinship navigator, and prevention services programs - use these forms to provide assurances the programs will be administered in conformity with the requirements stipulated in title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Several changes are being made to these forms; from the listing, the changes appear to be innocuous.
Comments due August 8.
National Directory of New Hires. The NDNH is a federally mandated repository of employment and wage information used by state child support agencies to locate a parent living or working in a different state and to take appropriate interstate actions to establish, modify, or enforce a child support order. Minor changes are being made to the collection, including changing the date format and removing the option to submit by mail.
Comments due August 8.
Web Interface and Forms To Support Genomic Data Sharing for Research Purposes. All investigators who receive NIH funding to conduct large-scale genomic research are expected to register studies with human genomic data in NIH's shared database. As part of the study registration process, investigators must provide basic study information, such as the types of data that will be submitted and a description of the study, via a form provided by the funding NIH institute. The related forms are being revised to clarify that requesters are expected to attest that their systems secure the data according to standards set for in the NIH Security Best Practices for Users of Controlled-Access Data.
Comments due Sept. 6.
Data Sharing Agreements
CMS Modified System of Records. CMS is modifying its Home Health Agency (HHA) Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) to collect information on patients with any payer source, instead of just patients with Medicare/Medicaid pay sources and to add new routine uses, which include sharing with courts and other adjudicative bodies and sharing with congressional offices in response to constituent requests.
Comments due August 11.
Surveys
Annual Survey of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. This survey collects data on the financial structure and operations of foreign-owned U.S. business enterprises, which are used to provide reliable measures of foreign direct investment in the United States to assess its impact on the U.S. economy. BEA is proposing to discontinue collection of data on “minority-owned” U.S. affiliates, which are U.S. affiliates for which the voting interest of all foreign parents of the U.S. affiliate is 50 percent or less.
Comments due Sept. 8.