Today class, we're going to learn a new acronym...NPPES; and yes, there will be a quiz later!
It all began with HIPAA... You know that one - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
HIPAA said there needed to be a standard unique identifier for health care providers, and voilĂ the NPI was created. That's National Provider Identifier should you need a refresher.
If you want to view or update your NPI data or create a Web login for an existing NPI, well then you need... NPPES! Now pay attention class, you'll need to know this for the quiz later - it stands for National Plan & Provider Ennumeration System.
NPPES collects identifying information on health care providers and assigns each a unique National Provider Identifier - NPI.
There's also an NPIPlanID, but that's for covered health plans and we won't be covering that in this lesson.
That's it for today, but your homework assignment is to read more about NPPES:
https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov/NPPES/StaticForward.do?forward=static.npistart
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalProvIdentStand/Downloads/NPPES_FOIA_Data%20Elements_062007.pdf
I was going to say "you've got to be kidding" and then I clicked on the links.
Now I have a headache!
Yikes!
Posted by: Kim | July 03, 2007 at 10:56 PM