My opinion is that you are a business associate of the health plan, which has outsourced this function to you to perform on their behalf. Best course of action is for you to confirm this with your company's legal counsel AND the legal counsel of the health plan for which you perform these services.
Rachel Foerster Principal Rachel Foerster & Associates, Ltd. Professionals in EDI & Electronic Commerce 39432 North Avenue Beach Park, IL 60099 Phone: 847-872-8070 Fax: 847-872-6860 http://www.rfa-edi.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 9:45 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: A Clearinghouse By Any Other Name ... Would anyone here have an opinion of "what type of entity", from a HIPAA Transaction Rule perspective, the following operation could be categorized? I have an operation that receives; on behalf of a HEALTH PLAN, paper claims from the PLAN's health care PROVIDERS (doctors, hospitals, etc.). We then take the paper claims; scan them into an imaging system, key the claims into our own claims processing software system (off the scanned image of the paper claim), adjudicate the claim, cut the paper check and EOB and/or ERA and mail. The submitting providers; and the payee's on the backend have no knowledge of us. The checks bear the logo/address/signature of our health plan clients. And the address where the paper claims are mailed have the name of our health plan clients; with a PO Box that we set up; and from which we collect the inbound mail. Question: does this make us a "CLEARINGHOUSE"? [I had, naively perhaps, assumed that a "HIPAA defined clearinghouse" was one that reformatted data from a non-HIPAA standard format to a HIPAA standard format or vice-versa; and I had assumed that the media on both sides of this are electronic - but, when I look at the definition below; perhaps the rule applies to "paper" as a 'non-HIPAA standard format' as well.]. Definition below for convenience - from the WEDI/SNIP Glossary Health Care Clearinghouse: Under HIPAA, this is an entity that processes or facilitates the processing of information received from another entity in a nonstandard format or containing nonstandard data content into standard data elements or a standard transaction, or that receives a standard transaction from another entity and processes or facilitates the processing of that information into nonstandard format or nonstandard data content for a receiving entity. Also see Part II, 45 CFR 160.103. Henry A Perretta HAPCO International, LLC 6302 Dunman Way Alexandria,VA, 22315 ********************************************************************** To be removed from this list, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that it may take up to 72 hours to process your request. ====================================================== The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. Posting of advertisements or other commercial use of this listserv is specifically prohibited. ********************************************************************** To be removed from this list, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that it may take up to 72 hours to process your request. ====================================================== The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. Posting of advertisements or other commercial use of this listserv is specifically prohibited.
