Real Challenge for Healthcare: Final Standards on Electronic Health Information - Industry Trend or Event - Brief Article

Health Management Technology, Dec, 1999

Forget Y2K. When it comes to information technology, the real challenge for healthcare providers and health plans--particularly physician offices-will be meeting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) final standards on electronic health information as required by HIPAA.

HIPAA mandates that all healthcare providers must employ Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solutions for commonly used administrative functions. The HHS has released the following tentative schedule for publishing its final standards:

* Transactions and Coding, November 1999

* National Provider Identifier, December 1999

* National Employers Identifier, December 1999

* Security, December 1999

Providers are expected to implement these standards within two years of the effective date of the rule, which is generally 60 days after its publication.

Additional information and updates on HIPAA may be found at the HHS Website.

www.hhs.gov