Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

What’s in an NPI: What Healthcare Providers Must Know to Meet the May 2007 Deadline

Manasquan, N.J., USA, November 28, 2006 – Attention, healthcare providers: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) deadline for accepting and using National Provider Identifiers (NPI) is less than 180 days away. Are you ready?

To clarify requirements for healthcare providers to meet the May 23, 2007 NPI target date, the Healthcare Intelligence Network (HIN) is sponsoring “NPI: Strategies for an Implementation Process to Meet the May 2007 Deadline,” a live interactive audio conference on December 12, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time. For more information, please visit the HIN site.

The NPI, a requirement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), will replace healthcare provider identifiers currently used in standard transactions. Beginning May 23, 2007, NPIs must be used by HIPAA-covered entities -- health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and healthcare providers -- to identify healthcare providers in certain electronic transactions. These transactions include claims; eligibility inquiries and responses; claim status inquiries and responses; referrals; and remittance advisories. Healthcare providers who transmit health information electronically in connection with any of these transactions are required to obtain and use NPIs, even if they use other agencies to prepare the transactions.

“Electronic transactions have become the norm in the healthcare industry, and implementing the NPI can help make electronic data exchanges a viable and preferable alternative to paper processing,” said Melanie Matthews, HIN executive vice president and chief operating officer. “However, affected healthcare providers must understand the testing and system modifications that must accompany the adoption and use of NPIs.”

During this 90-minute audio conference, Lynn Somers Syrek, director of operations support and NPI project manager at Coventry Health Plans, and Matthew Wallach, chief marketing officer for Health Market Science, will describe what steps organizations need to take to ensure compliance by the May 2007 deadline. Participants will receive guidance in the following areas:

• NPI requirements and timetables;
• Tips for building a comprehensive implementation team;
• Suggested testing methods to ensure compliance;
• Enumeration requirements;
• How and when to cross-walk NPI to legacy systems; and
• Contingency planning for the NPI deadline.

To register and obtain additional details about the audio conference, please visit the HIN site.

The 90-minute live audio conference, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern time on December 12, 2006, includes a 30-minute question-and-answer period for participants. A recorded version on CD-ROM with a printed transcript will be available in late December, and an “On-Demand” audio conference re-broadcast can be accessed beginning December 14, 2006.

This audio conference has been designed to address the interests of CIOs, CTOs, IT directors, CEOs, security and privacy officers, system and network managers, internal audit directors, HIPAA team leaders, compliance officers, legal counsel, risk managers, business development executives and strategic planning directors.

About the Healthcare Intelligence Network – HIN is the premier advisory service for executives seeking high-quality strategic information on the business of healthcare. For more information, contact the Healthcare Intelligence Network, PO Box 1442, Wall Township, NJ 07719-1442, (888) 446-3530, fax (732) 292-3073, e-mail info@hin.com, or visit http://www.hin.com.

###

Contact: Patricia Donovan
Voice: (888) 446-3530
Fax: (732) 292-3073
E-mail: pdonovan@hin.com
Web site: www.hin.com