A draft version of X12N's version 005010 270/271 Health Care
Eligibility/Benefit Inquiry and Information Response Implementation
Guide, 005010X279, is now available for public review and comment as a
key step in its X12 Type 3 Technical Report (TR3) publication process.

The public comment period for this guide commenced on 8 August 2007
and will close on Friday, 7 September 2007, at 5:00 pm Eastern time.

The purpose of this 270/271 Implementation Guide is to:
· determine if an Information Source organization, such as an
insurance company, has a particular subscriber or dependent on
file, and
· determine the details of health care eligibility and/or benefit
information.

This is X12's only unconstrained public comment period. The authors of
this guide will consider all comments during and following the public
comment period. For a complete understanding of changes being suggested
and/or made to this guide, reviewers should monitor the on-line
conference during the public comment period and consider all author
responses prior to the Informational Forum. Official authoring work
group responses will be posted to the on-line conference at least 15
days prior to the Informational Forum.

An announcement of the Informational Forum will be made later. The
Informational Forum, held during an X12 Trimester Meeting, probably the
one during the last full week of September, 2007, [see
http://x12.org/x12org/meetings/x12trimt/index.cfm ], is the final X12
opportunity to comment: but only on modifications based on the received
public comments. After that, the guide is finalized for movement
through the Insurance Subcommittee (X12N) and X12 publication approval
processes.

The draft implementation guide is available for free download at:
http://www.wpc-edi.com/products/publications/x279 . Comments on the
draft can be submitted by anybody -- X12 member or not -- via the
on-line conference at:
http://www.wpc-edi.com/conferences/tg2/implementationguides .

The Health Care Eligibility/Benefit Inquiry and Information Response
Implementation Guide, 005010X279, is based on the previously published
005010X203 Implementation Guide and is a still-newer version 005010
iteration of the ones of the same title presently adopted under HIPAA,
004010 and 004010A1. The only changes made between the 005010X203 and
005010X279 Implementation Guides were modifications to the Required
Alternate Search Options and the addition of a recommended Alternate
Search Option and associated notes as well as corrections to
typographical errors. The on-line conference listed above contains a
set of annotated changed pages.

The present plan is to propose the finalized version of this draft
guide, modified based on any public comments, as a new HIPAA standard.

Participation in the public comment period for this guide is open to
all who may be interested; whether or not members of Accredited
Standards Committee X12. Reviewers are requested to focus their
comments on the differences between 005010X203 and 005010X279, however,
the authors will consider all comments received during the public review
period.

Please participate -- this is the highest leverage opportunity for
anybody outside of the authors to impact this document.

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