As Jonathan Allen has assured us, it is certainly valid X12 usage to include multiple interchanges within a single transmission. The HIPAA IGs go even further, and confirm that it is perfectly permissible to embed multiple transactions within a single functional group, or multiple functional groups within a single interchange. There are even pictures of this in the appendices covering control structures!
So, certainly, if the implementation guides themselves say this is acceptable, wouldn't a payer who refuses to accept, or rejects, transactions packaged in Dana's example be non-compliant? If folks thought this might be too difficult to handle, shouldn't the HIPAA IGs have said something else - or explicitly put restrictions on the number of functional groups per interchange or the like? Now, if I were cobbling together outbound transactions, I would probably choose to use the simplest structure - in effect, the lowest common denominator of a single transaction within a single functional group per interchange - just to be safe. I'm a considerate and thoughtful guy. But it seems the recipient would have no business *demanding* the simpler structure in any case; if the sender insisted on submitting a multiply packed interchange, I can't see how the receiver could balk at processing it: she should either just fix her EDI translator or manually break apart the transactions. Or she could always participate in the DSMO process to have the HIPAA IGs changed. Jonathan suggests that there might be "trading partner considerations" here. What does that mean? Are we back to one-off interpretations of implementation guides, where the dominant partner (usually the payer) arbitrarily re-interprets the standard? As it stands, there are probably far too many places in the HIPAA IGs subject to partner "negotiation." For example, use of "extended" characters (see Appendix A.1.2.3) like the at-sign (@) and lower-case characters are presumably subject to partner negotiation! Just how the heck do you send an e-mail address in the PER segment without using the at-sign? Or do you have to negotiate a tedious TPA just to use characters present on every keyboard? Does it grate you that you need "permission" to use lower-case characters? I've used those since 2nd grade; why can't payers handle them? Wouldn't it be simpler for the HIPAA IG to say you can use any character allowed by X12? - in effect, any graphic shared by EBCDIC and ISO 8859 Latin-1 - so you should be able to handle names of those with umlauted pretentiousness, like "Larry von B�low". Hmmm... are the sundry testing and certification vendors checking for this type of stuff? William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. Columbus, US-OH 43221-3859 +1 (614) 487-0320 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Allen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, 17 July, 2002 08:29 AM Subject: Re: Multiple ISA/IEA segments Dana Grant asked: > Can anyone tell me if it is within the ASC X12 standard to be allowed to > send multiple ISA/IEA segments? For example, within one file can there be a > sequence of segments > ISA - GS - ST - SE - GE - IEA - ISA - GS - ST - SE - GE - IEA. Yes, this is a perfectly X12-valid set of segments, making up two complete interchanges. Each ISA/IEA pair envelopes one interchange. > If this is a valid sequence, is an entity considered to be non-compliant if > they are unable to accept a multiple ISA/IEA enveloping structure? >From a pure X12 standpoint, any receiver that cannot accept two consecutive interchanges has a fairly broken translator. There may be trading partner considerations of course ... Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jonathan Allen | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Voice: 01404-823670 Barum Computer Consultants | | Fax: 01404-823671 --------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** 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.
