William, I am always amazed that providers have to do that. I have intimate experience in this market and with several different practice management systems, vendors and support units. None of these will make the provider do anything even remotely looking like the scenario you use a byplay in your examples. Wait and see how the problem is approached by some very motivated, creative system vendors before we go declaring that HIPAA has done nothing to ease the burden on the provider. I think you will find that is not the true circumstance. And if a vendor is not doing what is necessary, I'd expect that their life in the changing market will be short lived. ------------------( Forwarded letter 1 follows )-------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:29:14 -0400 To: WEDi/SNIP.ID.&.Routing[routing]@wedi.org.comp From: William.J.Kammerer[wkammerer]@novannet.com.comp Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The payer centric model
Payers are required to use standard transactions if the provider requests that they do so. Somehow the messages have to be gotten to the provider. In the typical supply-chain scenario using VANs and interconnects, the sender merely "pushes" the interchange to his VAN. Then the sender's VAN itself will worry about delivering it to the receiver's mailbox (if coincidentally subscribed to the same VAN), to another VAN to which the receiver is subscribed, or even directly to the receiver (using a "push" model) if the receiver has arranged that service with his VAN. It's not the sender's (the payer in our case) problem to arrange mailboxing for the receiver. Quite a bit of time, trouble and money can be saved if each payer didn't think it had to "play" VAN. And it certainly shouldn't be the problem of the receiver (the provider in our case) to go traipsing off to 20 or 30 payer websites to retrieve standard transactions, going through each payer's notion of a logon process and mailbox retrieval. It makes sense to learn that process for your one and only VAN or clearinghouse - but it hardly contributes anything to administrative simplification for the provider to have to repeat that process for every payer with whom he expects to exchange standard transactions. In a lot of ways, the payer-centric way of doing e-business reminds me of the DDE conundrum, whereby each payer persists in expecting every provider to learn the intricacies of his own eligibility web page rather than merely supporting the 270/271 standard transactions in a first-class manner as required by the TCS rule. William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. Columbus, US-OH 43221-3859 +1 (614) 487-0320 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce T LeGrand" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WEDi/SNIP ID & Routing" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, 13 June, 2002 10:56 AM Subject: Re: An Overview or Primer Document There is a common thread that keeps showing up in this discussion that I just cannot get past my reality check mechanism. Payers are required to support the standard transactions. They are not required to transmit them. Rather, in the instances where I have knowledge, Medicaid, Medicare and some Blues, they are going to put this data in a mail box and it is up to the provider to come and get it. Earlier there was a statement that my views a payer centric. I would argue that to follow the money, which is always the driving force in this dialogue, you will still end up with the payer. You want the money or the documentation, you do what the payer asks. ------------------( Forwarded letter 1 follows )-------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 11:45:34 -0400 To: WEDi/SNIP.ID.&.Routing[routing]@wedi.org.comp From: William.J.Kammerer[wkammerer]@novannet.com.comp Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: An Overview or Primer Document Rachel: I hadn't really thought of that before: using the "critical timelines" to "sell" the concept of the Healthcare CPP and Registry. But now that you bring it up, the overview should definitely include verbiage on how the CPP especially facilitates the industry achieving these critical milestones. Would you mind doing that part of the overview? Obviously, most folks are going to continue using Clearinghouses to help them become HIPAA compliant, but as we've long said, the CPP and Registry are useful to intermediaries also. With Internet connections to clearinghouses and CMS, there are the new HIPAA mandated security rules to deal with which require signatures and encryption - and the CPP is the ideal mechanism for sharing and disseminating certificates. And though it's a given that payers have to support all the standard transactions, the CPP is critical for broadcasting the capabilities of individual providers, avoiding onerous manual interaction as standard transactions are brought online one at a time. Though I'm no big fan of *mandatory* certification, certification is still a good thing to have: the CPP is the most efficient means of conveying your certified capabilities to your partners. And though it could be left unsaid - after all the discussion of the last couple of weeks - I'll say it again: I think Open-EDI is going to spring on many payers as a surprise by H-day, and only an automated infrastructure provided by the CPP and the Registry will make that at all possible. Thanks again, William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. Columbus, US-OH 43221-3859 +1 (614) 487-0320
