Thanks for making me laugh early on a Monday morning! I think however, that the External Code Source for the State Code (N402) is 22 which is identified as the National Zip Code and Post Office Directory. This external code set also identifies the 'official' codes for the Canadian Provinces.
Therefore, only codes from the official guide and the list should be used in a HIPAA compliant transaction. In fact the comment for N402 says that the data element is required only if the City Name (N401) is in the U.S. or Canada. There is the problem.....the IG says that the data element N402 is required but the comment contradicts that note. I understand that 4050 will make N402 Situational (as it should be based on the comment). Until then we're STUCK! /Helene Helene Guilfoy Guilfoy Consulting, LLC mobile: 717-468-8085 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: William J. Kammerer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 9:11 AM To: WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List Subject: Re: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries "What do you do with foreign countries?" You ignore, insult or bomb them if you happen to be George "W" Bush. Hee, hee - a little anti-war humor there. Tami Leaver originally asked "if the address is in Dresden Germany how would the state code be valued?" Chris Feahr said somewhere that I'm "quite knowledgeable about these sorts of things." I'm not always knowledgeable - but eternally curious. So to answer Tami's question, I pulled myself away from important executive work in Berlin and hopped on the next train to Dresden. After arriving and settling in, I immediately set to doing my research. I accosted various natives in the train station, the Altstadt and the Neustadt and inquired in my very best - yet woefully ungrammatical - schoolboy German: "Welche Staat ist Dresden in?" The answer was invariably "Sachsen." We call that "Saxony." The state code for "Sachsen" can be found in the ISO 3166-2 Country Subdivision Codes, available on the UN/LOCODE page at http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/service/main.htm. Thus, the state code for Saxony is "SN" - the second part of the 3166-2 code "DE-SN" for Sachsen. I never saw state codes used in addresses, though: the postal code provides enough detail to differentiate any possible like named burgs or cities. The only like-named cities an American must absolutely be able to distinguish are Frankfurt on the Main vs. Frankfurt on the Oder. The one on the Main River is the big one with the airport. All the research to answer Tami's question, beer gedrinken and train gehopping will explain my delay in giving the definitive answer to this pressing question of using foreign state codes in HIPAA transactions. Keep in mind not all the ISO 3166-2 Country Subdivision Codes fit in the two alphanumeric bytes available in N402. Technically, the location identifier in N405 and N406 should be used for non US state or Canadian province codes, though these are marked unused in the HIPAA IGs. Since state codes are often not used for postal addresses (e.g., as in Germany), I would just stuff any old syntactically valid garbage in N402 to make the transaction "compliant." The city name and postal code are sufficient for all non-US and non-Canadian addresses. William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. Columbus, US-OH 43221-3859 +1 (614) 487-0320 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Weber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, 26 March, 2003 12:33 PM Subject: Re: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries I'm not sure I'd bet the farm on the USPS modifying their ZIP code directory to reference other code sources. As far as putting in a value of "FC" as a state identifier, this doesn't mitigate the problem with those countries that have their own states or similar administrative regions (i.e. Mexico, Argentina, Germany, Brazil, etc.). The X12 standard for data element 156 clearly requires the code as defined by the appropriate government agency. Paul Weber ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Webb" Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:31:55 -0600 To: "Paul Weber" , "WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List" Subject: Re: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Paul et al, I remember that Medicare had an "official" list associated with the NSF specs that included 'FC' for Foreign Country as a State Code. I'm not sure if USPS ever made this official, but if so, it could work. If not, since this is an external list without the change timing constraints of lists in the spec itself, could someone pressure USPS to add it (or something similar) quickly? USPS could also include the various postal codes of the various other countries by reference in its ZIP code list (with a value to use for those conutries that don't have such a code). The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily the opinion of LCMH. Douglas M. Webb Computer System Engineer Little Company of Mary Hospital & Health Care Centers [EMAIL PROTECTED] "This electronic message may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the individual(s) and entity(s) named as recipients in the message. If you are not an intended recipient of the message, please notify the sender immediately, delete the material from any computer, do not deliver, distribute, or copy this message, and do not disclose its contents or take action in reliance on the information it contains. Thank you." ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Weber To: WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 04:11 PM Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Relative to identifying Canada, please refer to the industry note on N404 Country Code on page 69 of the implementation guide which reads: "Required only if country is not USA". Therefore to identify Canada, you would use the appropriate ISO-3166 value for that country. While the external code list for N402 (state/province code) does refer to the USPS designators, the reference to the code source 22 in Appendix C of the implementation guide specifically includes values for the provinces and territories of Canada. However, and here's yet another issue for consideration, these values do not include the code for Nunavut as this territory did not exist when the 4010 standards were published. Those in the know might also realize that the values in the X12 standard for Canadian provincial/territorial abbreviations do not fully match the values currently specified by the Canadian postal service. One more thing about states/provinces coding...many countries (Mexico immediately comes to mind) have postal geographic first level (state) abbreviations that are longer than the two characters available in data element 156. Also consider that N403 (Postal Code) is a required field in the guide and that the external code source 51 linked to this element is the USPS ZIP code directory. Hmmm...seems to me we can't put a foreign postal code in here if we are also insisting that the only thing we can put in N402 are the values in code source 22. As far as reporting the state code issue for foreign countries to X12, I do not recall this ever being brought forward to the 834 workgroup nor do I see a current (or historical) DSMO request for this issue to be addressed as part of the 834 transaction. However I will bring it up at the June trimester meeting of our 834 workgroup. Paul Weber 916-449-6970 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Helene Guilfoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 15:33:04 -0500 To: "WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Good question but one that does not seem to be answer-able! To make the problem more evident - there are 16 states that have a Paris address. God forbid that you should inadvertently select one of those states as your 'required' state code. Then it could get really problematic! To make matters even worse, the requirement for a state code requires the use of the USPS State Codes so we can't even use a 'not otherwise defined' code. This was pointed out to X12 before the final addenda was published. I'm told that we must wait until 4050 (and all of the NPRM, Final Rule publishing) before this will be resolved. At that time the IG will be changed to make the State Code situational based on the comment for N402 that says it is only required if the city name (N401) is in the US or Canada. But then that makes the Country Code problematic since it is only required when the address is outside of the US or Canada. So how do we identify Canada? Hope there is not a Paris, Canada! /Helene Helene Guilfoy Guilfoy Consulting, LLC mobile: 717-468-8085 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:52 PM To: WEDI SNIP Transactions Workgroup List Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries OK, Let me re-ask Peggy's question. Is there an industry work around for and unvalued state code when the address is foreign? For example, if the address is in Dresden Germany how would the state code be valued? Thanks! Tami Leaver Sr. Application Analyst PA/PM Team Medstar Health Information Systems 410-933-6905 "Bass, David (DHS-PSD)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "WEDI SNIP Translations Subworkgroup List" t.mhg.edu> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: 03/24/03 01:43 PM Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Please respond to "Bass, David (DHS-PSD)" That comment is taken from the standard. It was not created for the implementation guide. In the standard, N402 is optional, hence the comment. The IG requires it regardless. ________________________________ "And the saga continues..." David Bass DHS, Office of HIPAA Compliance Phone: (916) 255-5282 Fax: (916) 255-5271 -----Original Message----- From: Paul Weber [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 9:49 AM To: WEDI SNIP Translations Subworkgroup List Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries The N4 segment (Member Residence City, State, ZIP Code) in Loop 2100A of the 834 has a specific comment on element N402 (State or Province Code) that reads "N402 is required only if city name (N401) is in the U.S. or Canada." I'll leave it to others to debate whether the comment overrides the USAGE REQUIRED statement of the implementation guide for this element. Sincerely, Paul Weber 916-449-6970 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peggy Honts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 19:14:10 -0500 To: "WEDI SNIP Translations Subworkgroup List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Thank you Chris for forwarding my question. Even if they are not a covered entity -- they believe and I agree when they use the transaction it should be compliant. Also, if a covered entity receives a non-compliant transaction -- they would not be able to use their compliance checkers. Peggy Honts, Vice President HIPAA, Architecture & Data Services AXIOM Systems, Inc. 20300 Century Blvd., Suite 120 Germantown, MD 20874 Direct 301-840-9165 X212 Cell 301-518-9930 e-Fax 928-752-1441 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Feahr [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 6:56 PM To: Peggy Honts; WEDI SNIP Translations Subworkgroup List Cc: William J. Kammerer Subject: Re: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries Hello Peggy, I see very little traffic on this listserve (in fact, I forgot I was even subscribed to it!). I'm copying William Kammerer because he is quite knowledgeable about these sorts of things. You may also wish to post your question to the "transactions" listserve. Since the entity sending you the 834 will likely not be a covered entity, you could leave it empty for subscribers located outside the USA. (I'd be inclined to use whatever worked in a case like this!) Regards, -Chris Christopher J. Feahr Optiserv Consulting (Vision Industry) Office (707) 579-4984 Cell (707) 529-2268 http://Optiserv.com http://VisionDataStandard.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peggy Honts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "WEDI SNIP Translations Subworkgroup List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 2:48 PM Subject: State Code Required -- What do you do with foreign countries What do you do when building transactions (834) for subscribers that are located in a foreign country. The implementation guide and the compliance checkers all require a State Code. There is no State code. Has anyone found a solution or work around for this requirement. Peggy Honts, Vice President HIPAA, Architecture & Data Services AXIOM Systems, Inc. 20300 Century Blvd., Suite 120 Germantown, MD 20874 Direct 301-840-9165 X212 Cell 301-518-9930 e-Fax 928-752-1441 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. 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