Dave, I think I did see a little discussion of the "DINS+4", but it strikes me as a partially "de-standardized" standard intended to accomplish what you could also do by requesting a unique DUNS for every department, plan, or incoming message portal in your company. D&B might not condone this, however... preferring to have only one unique DUNS for each identifiable business enterprise. But it doesn't sound like they really support or even acknowledge the "DUNS+" hack either. The govt. could render this moot by getting off its butt and creating a national registry of (tax-paying) business organisms with some sort of unique identifier.
Without the full cooperation of a company like D&B and an agreement to support the ID-system the way people want to use it, it strikes me as risky to recommend it as a primary communication identifier for healthcare EDI. If we were going to lean on someone to help support a national business ID registry, it may as well be the fed. govt. -Chris At 08:15 AM 3/28/02 -0800, David Frenkel wrote: >D&B use to have a free service you could look up a DUNS number but for >some reason they discontinued this service. I'm sure many of you are >aware that there is what is called a DUNS+ number which is a DUNS number >with a suffix. Some organizations have multiple DUNS+ numbers. I >worked for a large manufacturing organization that had a DUNS+ for every >door in their buildings. You might discuss using DUNS vs DUNS+. > >Regards, > >David Frenkel >Business Development >GEFEG USA >Global Leader in Ecommerce Tools >www.gefeg.com >425-260-5030 > >-----Original Message----- >From: William J. Kammerer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 4:11 AM >To: WEDi/SNIP ID & Routing >Subject: Re: Payers sure do like proprietary provider IDs! Do providers >feel the same way? > >Chris: > >D & B uses the "carrot" of the DUNS number get you to use their eUpdate >service to update your business profile. Since your company is listed, >but you do not know your DUNS. they tell you to call 888.814.1435 >Monday-Friday 8:00AM-6:00PM local time, or go to >https://www.dnb.com/product/eupdate/update1.html to request an eUpdate >logon (which is your DUNS) and password to review your company profile. > >William J. Kammerer >Novannet, LLC. >+1 (614) 487-0320 > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Christopher J. Feahr, OD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "William J. Kammerer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "WEDi/SNIP ID & >Routing" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Wednesday, 27 March, 2002 10:52 PM >Subject: Re: Payers sure do like proprietary provider IDs! Do providers >feel the same way? > > >William, >I did a little poking around on http://sbs.dnb.com/default.asp and I see >that "Christopher J. Feahr, OD" is listed in D&B''s database... even >correctly listing my two partners, one of whom joined me only a year >ago. But I did not see my DUNS number. How does one discover or get >assigned a DUNS #? I would think it's automatic if you are in the DB as >a "business". >-Chris > >BTW: I do find it extremely annoying as a provider to have to maintain >so many different IDs for myself for different payors. WHAT THE HECK IS >THE HOLD-UP ON THESE NATIONAL IDENTIFIERS FOR BUSINESSES??? I don't see >how this could be controversial of very difficult to implement. > >Christopher J. Feahr, OD >http://visiondatastandard.org >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Cell/Pager: 707-529-2268 Christopher J. Feahr, OD http://visiondatastandard.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell/Pager: 707-529-2268