HIPAA transaction standards released
Goal is to simplify
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released its final rule setting standards for electronic transactions under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), but the jury is still out on whether those standards will help simplify the business of health care.
"For now, my attitude is one of wait and see,’" says Peter A. Kraus, CHAM, business analyst, patients accounts services, for Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital. "Transaction standards are part of the HIPAA goal for administrative simplification. In principle, that sounds good and is long overdue. But pardon me for regarding government-directed administrative simplification as an oxymoron."
The rule, published in the Federal Register Aug. 17, 2000, can be found at http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/final/txfin00.htm. It will take effect roughly 60 days after its publication date.
The new standards establish the content and formats to be used in submitting claims electronically between providers and fiscal intermediaries. In a news release, HHS estimated the rule will create a net savings to the health care industry totaling $29.9 billion over 10 years.
Kraus says he has heard of "interesting" HIPAA security standards in the pipeline. "The word simplification was never mentioned once. Even with the best of intentions, the government, bless its bureaucratic soul, often causes more trouble than it solves. I don’t know whether the transaction standards will be an exception."
The rule represents the first major block of HIPAA to be put in place in several months. Another key section implementing the 1996 act, dealing with privacy, should come out later this year. The electronic standards rule is being released under the assumption that the privacy protections will be in place at about the same time the transaction standards take effect, stated HHS Secretary Donna Shalala in the news release.
"If such privacy protections [are] not in place, HHS will seriously consider suspending or withdrawing the transaction regulation, pending appropriate privacy protections," the HHS news release reported.
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