The draft House of Representatives bill to improve healthcare
information technology moved from subcommittee to the full Ways and
Means Committee earlier this week. It's most salient HIPAA TCS features
include:
+ replacing the current HIPAA transaction standards with X12
version 005010 and NCPDP version D.0 -- without using the NPRM
process -- for compliance by 1 April 2009,
+ replacing ICD-9 diagnoses and procedure codes with ICD-10-CM
and ICD-10-PCS with compliance by 1 October 2009, and
+ instituting a streamlined process for adopting future HIPAA
transaction standards beyond versions 005010 and D.0.

The complete status of the latest draft of HR 4157, dated 13 June
2006, can be found via http://thomas.loc.gov .

Feel free to contact me should you desire further explanations of what's
going on.

Dave Feinberg
Rensis Corporation [A Consulting Company]
206-617-1717
DAFeinberg@...
Author of "Understanding HIPAA Communications"