William, 
Youbetcha! If/when the NPID becomes real, and when payers all agree to apply
for and get one, and then when they all agree to put the identifiers on the
cards, we'll all be very happy. Ditto the Nat'l provider IDs for inclusion
in the ISAs (are providers even required to apply for them?).  Until then,
however, we'll unfortunately have to live with a hodge-podge of identifiers,
but that shouldn't keep us from making any forward progress.

What if we simply said, for example: ok, all you payers that want to post
your CPPs to begin development of CPAs with potential provider trading
partners, post in the DNS the address where your CPP can be found under
whatever identifier you are currently using on your insurance cards -
preferably your group/plan ID, but if that's not present, and all you have
is a phone number, post it under that.  Without waiting for a national
identifier, and waiting for the hundreds of millions of insurance cards to
be re-issued, we can just start moving forward with establishing CPAs, and
sending 837s.  If I could just convince 25 large carriers to do that, I
could achieve 50% of my goal for development of TPAs by 4/16/03, with only a
fraction of the work.  If the payers want to designate a CH to be their
receiver, then they can simply point their identifier to where the CH's CPP
resides (all the same to me).

On the other hand, if they want to give me 1/2 of the $34.5 million, i would
be happy to quit this job and host the database myself...
Dave Minch
T&CS Project Manager
John Muir / Mt. Diablo Health System
Walnut Creek, CA
(925) 941-2240


-----Original Message-----
From: William J. Kammerer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 9:32 AM
To: WEDi/SNIP ID & Routing
Subject: Re: Are only 15 characters in the ISA receiver ID enough?


Dave:

I took a look at my insurance card for Anthem Community Choice, and
besides my ID no. and group name, the BC/BS plan code of 332/834 (Inst.
vs. Professional) appears on the front.  There're also the usual phone
numbers, and the claim submission mailing address.  So how does a
provider (today) know how to go from the respective Blue Cross/Blue
Shield plan no. to an EDI Identifier?

But I certainly hope *NOT* that "the best identifier of all for
discovering the CPP is that contact address or phone number..."  I want
the payer or plan EDI identifier to appear directly on the insurance
card - in order that things can be automated (without phone calls and
paper).

Speaking of Plans, Peter Barry presented a paper on Identifiers at the
HIPAA Summit West in San Francisco last month.  Maybe he can be
persuaded to share the paper with the group.  But anyway, the impression
I came away with is that the National Plan ID will appear on the
patient's Health Identification Card - and by using the National Plan ID
as a key, you can access the National Plan ID database whence you're
cross linked to the entities processing those plans (e.g., payers,
employers, Third party administrators).  If those cross links were to
CPPs, then the National Plan ID database itself would supplant any need
for a separate CPP Registry for payers.

However, I wouldn't bet the farm on the possibility there would be any
government sponsored databases available and running in time for
H-day! - even though the HIPAA Funding proposal in the Bush Budget
includes "$34.5 million to implement a system to assign unique
identifiers for providers and health plans."

William J. Kammerer
Novannet, LLC.
+1 (614) 487-0320

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