Information Blocking has been a part of MIPS for a few years now. It is a little hard to understand, as CMS tends to like it's "Legal Speak", but in essence its not that hard. What is basically says is that the practice will not knowingly restrict functionality that allows them to complete measures for MIPS. An example is a practice refusing to give out their direct address to other practices. This would prevent them from receiving a transfer of care, and therefore they can take the exclusion. That is a basic example of information blocking.
This will expand a bit with the new Cures Act that is going into place. With that piece of legislation, EHR's (including AC) will need to send the patient's medical record to the device of the patient's choice. This will be accomplished through the use of open API's. In this case, if the patient requests it, the practice would need to do it. Failure to do so would be considered information blocking. Of course there will be technical limitations (the device has to be able to accept the information... the patient can't say "send my information to my 1990 Nokia phone"). BTW, AC can already do API calls, and has for a while now. The documentation can be found here:
https://amazingcharts.com/api-documentation/That is the simplified version of this. Like with any law, there are a bunch of exceptions, loop holes, and technical jargon to work through. Healthit.gov is fairly readable and does a good job summarizing to the best of their ability. Here is the link:
https://www.healthit.gov/curesrule/final-rule-policy/information-blockingI hope this helps a little. Let me know if you have any questions.
