Healthcare EDI – Importance and Benefits
Healthcare EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has been used for decades. Payers use healthcare EDI to determine healthcare coverage and verify benefits. EDI is as important as several other data exchange formats in the healthcare industry. Healthcare EDI has transformed the healthcare industry, manufacturing, and supply chain.
So what is healthcare EDI?
Healthcare EDI is a way for
healthcare organizations to exchange data to and from external systems and
entities. Instead of preparing such data manually and risking errors in data,
and possible data theft, electronically preparing and transmitting data and electronic data interchange avoids such problems. As an
output, healthcare industries can automate their healthcare processing systems,
including patient care systems.
How is healthcare EDI related to
HIPAA compliance?
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a law or mandate protecting patient data.
Any disclosure or sharing of sensitive patient data must be with the patient’s
consent as per electronic data exchange laws. HIPAA also requires
healthcare organizations to follow a data format to transmit and process
healthcare data. Standardized data is consistent, and data anomalies can be
avoided.
The law also requires healthcare
companies to use secure encrypted electronic transmission, access health data,
and implement automated compliance checks for regulations related to HHS
privacy. Before the widespread implementation and adoption of HIPAA, healthcare
organizations used their proprietary codes EDI tools for healthcare. This made it difficult to exchange data, and
any pre-processing of data was expensive.
Why is EDI in healthcare
important?
Healthcare EDI is important
because it improves the productivity of healthcare operations. It reduces
anomalies, enhances data accuracy, processing efficiency, and healthcare
delivery speed. There is limited or no human intervention. So the scope of malpractices
or compromising data security is low or none.
Errors are obliterated. Be it
manual, billing, or shipping errors, such instances are rare or do not exist
with healthcare EDI. Therefore EDI is used extensively by payers for insurance
claims processing. Because of healthcare EDI, healthcare providers and insurers
can effectively manage their claims. There are fewer denials, no rework
requests, and no grievances from customers.

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