WASHINGTON (PRWEB)
November 06, 2019

WEDI, the nation’s leading nonprofit authority on the use of health IT to create efficiencies in health care information exchange, today applauded the rescinding by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of the Unique Health Plan Identifier (HPID) under the Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

On October 28, 2019, HHS published in the Federal Register the final rule CMS-0054-F. This Final Rule amends 45 CFR 162.103 and repeals 45 CFR 162.502-514 to rescind the adoption of the Health Plan Identifier (HPID) and Other Entity Identifier (OEID). The final rule eliminates the regulatory requirement for health plans to obtain and use an HPID and eliminates the voluntary acquisition and use of the OEID. The final rule also simplifies the process for deactivating the existing identifiers to minimize operational costs for covered entities. On or after the effective date of this final rule – December 27, 2019 – any active HPID or OEID will be automatically deactivated in the Health Plan or Other Entity Enumeration System (HPOES).

“WEDI, along with other health care industry stakeholders, has played a significant role in guiding direction for the HPID implementation planning,” said Charles Stellar, President and CEO of WEDI. “After it became clear in the early years after the rule was issued, that the HPID and its implementation was going to be very complex with little return on investment to the industry, WEDI further engaged the industry, resulting in modifying our comment to support no implementation of HPID was needed so we applaud the decision by HHS.”

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  On July 22, 2015, Jean Narcisi, then-Chair of the WEDI Board of Directors issued a comment letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andrew Slavitt to request information regarding the requirements for the Health Plan Identifier, while sharing extensive feedback and guidance from WEDI members and other industry stakeholders.
• On May 3, 2017, Laurie Darst, then-Chair of the WEDI Board of Directors and Co-Chair of the WEDI Health Plan Identifier Workgroup issued a statement on behalf of WEDI to the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) Subcommittee on Standards that HPID not be used in transactions and that the HPID enumeration was not needed at all.

About WEDI

WEDI is the leading authority on the use of health IT to improve health care information exchange in order to enhance the quality of care, improve efficiency, and reduce costs of our nation’s health care system. WEDI was formed in 1991 by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and was designated in the 1996 HIPAA legislation as an advisor to HHS. WEDI’s membership includes a broad coalition of organizations, including: hospitals, providers, health plans, vendors, government agencies, consumers, not-for-profit organizations, and standards development organizations. To learn more, visit http://www.wedi.org and connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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