HIPAA standards move forward

We all know that the quest for standards is one of those elusive holy grails in healthcare IT. Get it right and you speed technology adoption, get it wrong and you feel like an American trying to plug in your electric razor into one of those funny outlets they've got in Europe. Maybe the folks involved with HIPAA will get it right. A slew of insurers, provider organizations and IT vendors have committed to use industry-developed rules to standardize the HIPAA eligibility verification and benefits determination transaction. Through a Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange (CORE), payer advocacy group CAQH has led the effort to standardize the HIPAA transactions, starting with eligibility/benefits determination. The goal is to standardize the transactions to the point that they can be conducted as seamlessly as your nearest, or farthest, ATM.

Vendors and clearinghouses in the deal include ACS State Healthcare, Availity LLC, Athenahealth Inc., Emdeon Corp., GHN-Online, HTP Inc., McKesson Provider Technologies, MedAvant Healthcare Solutions, MedCom USA, MedData, NaviMedix Inc., Passport Health Communications, Siemens Medical Solutions, and Quovadx Inc.

For more on HIPAA standards:
- Get the story at Health Data Management here