I came across Christine Stahlecker's presentation entitled
"Telecommunication and HIPAA: Issues, Concerns, Recommendations," given
at the HIPAA SUMMIT WEST II on March 13 in San Francisco, at
http://www.ehcca.com/presentations/HIPAAWest2/stahlecker.ppt. In there,
she gives some "buzz" to our modest little work effort. Clearly, Chris
shares our vision of Open-EDI and frictionless trading using the
Internet, while still accommodating the important role of Clearinghouses
in supporting providers and payers.
Unfortunately, from what I can gather from one of Chris' bullets, a fly
in the ointment is Medicare's (CMS) refusal to entertain use of the
Internet for the exchange of standard EDI transactions because of real
or perceived security concerns. Unless and until CMS changes its mind
and authorizes the use of the Internet to exchange HIPAA transactions
with Medicare contractors, we might have to provide some capability in
our Delivery Channel ("EDI Address") to accommodate dial-up or leased
line protocols - regardless of what I said in "Should we even waste
time defining Delivery Channels (EDI Addresses) to accommodate non-IP
protocols?" last Tuesday.
Does anyone have any inside insight on CMS' resistance to using the
Internet for the exchange of standard transactions?
William J. Kammerer
Novannet, LLC.
+1 (614) 487-0320
