§1320d–1 General requirements for adoption of standards

Summary

Health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers who send electronic health information for covered transactions must follow the standards made under this law. The standards must help lower the paperwork and other administrative costs of giving and paying for health care. Standards should normally come from recognized standard-setting groups, but the Secretary can choose a different standard if it will greatly cut costs and is made following formal rulemaking. If no standard-setting group has created a needed standard, then the Secretary follows a different consultation process. The groups involved must include organizations such as the National Uniform Billing Committee, the National Uniform Claim Committee, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, and the American Dental Association. The Secretary must write the technical rules for using each standard. Standards cannot force people to disclose trade secrets or confidential business information. The Secretary must rely on recommendations from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, consult federal and state agencies and private groups, publish those recommendations in the Federal Register, and treat changes to a standard the same way as a new adoption.