DHHS HIPAA Rules (note bottom item)

[Peter Marshall <techdiff@ix.netcom.com>]

Date: Sun, 9 May 1999
From: WILLIAM BRAITHWAITE <bbraithw@OSASPE.DHHS.GOV>
Subject: Schedule for Administrative Simplification Regulations
To: HIPAA-REGS@LIST.NIH.GOV

Tentative Schedule for Publication of HIPAA
Administrative Simplification Regulations

The Department of Health and Human Services is planning
to issue HIPAA regulations under the following schedule.
The amount of time from publication of the Notice of
Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) to publication of the final
rule is needed to review and respond to the large number
of comments received on the NPRMs.   (For example, we
received over 17,000 comments on the Transactions and
Coding NPRM alone).  Both the logistics of handling that
many comments, and the analysis of the issues raised
impact on the time it is taking to develop the final rule.  In
addition, these rules need to be reviewed not only within
the Department of Health and Human Services and a
number of its subordinate agencies, but also with several
other Federal departments affected by the rules.

This schedule is, of course, subject to change due to a
number of circumstances.

NPRMs Already Published:

Standard                NPRM Published  Expect Final Rule

Transactions and
Coding                          5/07/98         11/99

National Provider
Identifier                      5/07/98         12/99

National Employer               6/16/98         12/99
Identifier

Security                        8/12/98         12/99



NPRMs in Development:

National Health Plan
Identifier                      12/99                   5/2001

Claims
Attachments                     9/99                    9/2000

National Individual             (On hold pending privacy)
Identifier

*Standards are required to be implemented within 2 years
of the effective date of the final rule; generally 60 days
after publication of the rule.  However, the effective date
for the National Provider Identifier is planned to be no
earlier than 7/2000, to give the Department enough time to
develop the system for implementing the identifier.