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Don’t forget D.0

While everyone’s scrambling to comply with ANSI X12 5010 standards for HIPAA transactions by Jan. 1—or whenever CMS gets around to enforcing them—there’s another piece of the upgrade that hasn’t been talked about much. That’s the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs’ version D.0 standard for pharmacy transactions.

I got an inadvertent reminder this week when I picked up some prescription refills. One of my meds was out of refills, so my doctor sent a refill electronically (woohoo). Inside the bag of meds was a printout that may not have been intended for me to see, or perhaps I was supposed to mention it to my doctor. The notice contained a “reject message” with the note, “VERSION D.0 REQUIRED AS OF 1/1/2012.

Obviously, the script went through and I got my refill, but I sure hope people don’t start getting prescriptions actually rejected for being in the old NCPDP 5.1 format after the first of the year. Prescribers, get in touch with your vendors. Vendors, remind your e-prescribing clients. It’s not a big change like 5010 and the forthcoming ICD-10, but it’s significant. So get it done.

November 18, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Video: athenahealth’s Jonathan Bush at HIMSS11

As has become custom at HIMSS, I sat down with Jonathan Bush, chairman, CEO and president of athenahealth, at the 2011 conference in Orlando, Fla., last week. But due to some technical difficulties in getting the room we thought we had reserved and in getting my audio recorder to work (OK, OK, I didn’t have fresh batteries on me), I busted out the HD video camera. (Wouldn’t you know, the battery was losing steam there, too, so I had to plug the camera in. I have since determined that the USB port wasn’t working, so I exchanged it this past weekend. But I seriously digress.)

In this interview, we talk athena’s business, meaningful use, 5010/ICD-10, ACOs, cloud computing and health reform. We poke a little fun at the “boat show” that the vendor expo has become and make plans for the “Cloud Cavalry” to ride into Las Vegas at HIMSS12.

YouTube recently raised the maximum video length to 15 minutes, but we went on for about 20, so I had to break the interview into two parts.

Part One

Part Two

Don’t forget to check out my fledgling YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/neilversel.

February 28, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.