NPI For Compliant Electronic Medical Billing - A Payer's Opportunity To Streamline Operations

Motivation - Poor Provider's Data Qualityand reporting. It
The provider's demographic data is dynamic by- Simplifies communication and administration
nature. Providers move their offices, add facilities,- Facilitates efficient electronic transmission of health
change their phone numbers, are sanctioned and stopinformation
practicing. Poor healthcare provider's data quality- Streamlines detection of billing fraud and abuse
affects virtually every aspect of healthcare payer's- Improves debt collection efforts
enterprise, diluting profits and member goodwill. Their- Reduces cost to re-issue checks
applications, interfaces, databases, files and reports- Improves accuracy of provider directories and
currently use legacy provider identifiers. Provider datareduces support cost
often exists in not one but many disparate- Reduces cost of claim adjudication - the cost of
databases throughout a healthcare payer's ITauto-adjudicated claim is $.40, 10-fold less than a
enterprise, including multiple variations of the samemanually adjudicated claim.
provider record. Provider's variations and discrepanciesMeans - NPI
generate as much as 12 percent of physicians checks- A unique 10-digit identification number
returned, raise numbers of support calls, increase- Assigned for life to a provider and de-activated only
manual claim adjudication, and impede identification ofupon death, retirement, or identity theft
billing fraud and abuse. For instance, the cost of single- Replaces multiple legacy provider identification
check re-issue alone can reach $20 for openingnumbers, including Medicare UPINs, commercial payer
handling, researching the correct provider, reissuingIds, and state Medicaid IDs
and mailing the check.- Independent of key provider information changes,
Opportunity - HIPAAsuch as practice location or specialty
The 1996 Health Insurance Portability andPayer Challenges
Accountability Act (HIPAA) established national- Clean - Create good provider's records by
privacy and security standards for electronic healthreconciling, standardizing, augmenting and integrating
care transactions, including a national identifier forlegacy provider data.
providers, health plans and employers. Accordingly, by- Crosswalk - Build a crosswalk between NPI and
May 23, 2007, health care providers and all healthlegacy provider identifiers. Since many providers have
plans and clearinghouses must change both theirmultiple locations and affiliations, the crosswalk of
processes and information systems to implementNPIs to legacy provider identifiers used in different
HIPAA's National Provider Identifier (NPI) regulations.provider files might be a complex one-to-many
Successful transition to NPI is critical to every aspectmapping.
of operations and impacts eligibility and authorization- Maintain - Actively manage and clean provider data
processing, provider enrollment, contracts andrecords as they change in the future.
directories, claims adjudication and payment, referrals,