Just a few comments from the peanut gallery.
First - I was one of the first people to state that I expect to eventually see and want a clean, secure, Internet way for Health Care to conduct Ebusiness. But that is a long way off. Second - that does not necessarily mean 'open' as I have seen it described here. Take the Blues for instance. HIPAA requires that we all accept claims etc. from providers. But it does NOT mandate how. If I am in Maine, I can say to a Utah provider "No, you can not send HIPAA transactions to me". And I will follow that with "My business associate that handles HIPAA transactions in your area for me is the UTAH Blue Plan - contact them". Nothing in HIPAA mandates that I do the HIPAA transactions via the same route or business associate for all providers/trading partners. Now, somebody can 'say' that I am refusing to obey the law and conduct HIPAA transactions with that provider, but that is NOT the reality of the situation. I am just directing the provider to the proper routing for cliams from that provider to my plan. And, that means that I can not support 'open' EDI. That would negate my current right to deligate my HIPAA responsibilities to business associates as I see fit. To my knowledge, the only restriction under HIPAA is that my business associate could not charge that provider more that the cost of a long distance telephone call. Bob
