On October 25, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final rule which withdraws their initial September 5, 2012 ruling requiring employer self-funded health plans and insurers of fully-insured health plans, to acquire their own individual Health Plan Identifier (HPID) for reporting HIPAA transactions. The 2012 HPID rule was initially purposed as a way to simplify HIPAA reporting, by providing one unique identifier for each health plan to use. However, on October 31, 2014, HHS delayed the implementation of this rule based upon feedback received from the healthcare industry. It was expressed that making this transition to the HPID rule would be disruptive, costly, and counterproductive to its initial purpose of simplification.
After being postponed for approximately five years, and continuing to receive repeated concerns from the healthcare industry, HHS has decided to abandon the HPID until a future time when it would be beneficial for the healthcare industry to implement.
The attached Compliance Bulletin provides additional details pertaining to the HPID rule and the decision of HHS to rescind this rule.
If you have any questions or wish to know more about HIPAA reporting regulations please contact your Cowden team.