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With 72 Hours Remaining to HHS Registration Deadline, Health Industry Associations, Media and Businesses Rally

Albuquerque, NM (ots)

Health industry associations, media and
businesses are redoubling efforts to reach constituents before a
March 16, 2003, registration deadline, to ensure they secure rights
to use ABC codes in HIPAA transactions.
All health industry participants considering commercial use or
evaluation of ABC codes in HIPAA transactions over the next two years
must officially register as users or lose rights to code set use,
according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
mandate issued earlier this year. Registration is free at
www.alternativelink.com, takes less than ten minutes and carries no
obligations. Once enrolled, registrants can opt in or out of code set
use, as they see fit.
As thousands of organizations and practitioners across the
healthcare continuum have registered to gain the competitive
advantages offered by the new code set, the vast majority have noted
the value they believe these codes offer the nation by advancing
public health and industry efficiencies.
ABC codes fill gaps and balance the medical orientation in older
code sets that became national standards under the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The codes
objectively describe alternative medicine, nursing and other
integrative healthcare interventions. They meet congressional
mandates under HIPAA; support comparisons of the economic and health
outcomes of conventional, complementary and alternative care; and
ensure health policy decisions can be based on a complete and
accurate picture of U.S. healthcare.
Until HHS authorized use of ABC codes under the HIPAA regulations
(45 CFR 162.940), the nation's government-sanctioned coding focused
on the practices of conventional physicians. As a result, healthcare
research, management and commerce have favored Western medical
practices delivered by these physicians. Medical coding has failed to
capture complete and accurate data on the care delivered by more than
80% of the country's healthcare practitioners, many of whom follow
wellness-based rather than disease-based models of care.
As an unbiased tool, billing codes should support commerce in a
way that allows free market forces to determine which products and
services deliver the greatest value. Without such coding, many
promising healthcare practices cannot gain access to the marketplace,
possibly resulting in unnecessarily high morbidity and mortality
rates and health insurance premiums.
For this reason, registrations for ABC code set use are already in
the thousands and include a broad range of health industry
stakeholders such as:
- Medicare/Medicaid and leading private health plans; 
   - Federal, state and local government agencies and institutes;
   - administrative and claims-related businesses;
   - software application developers and other information 
     technology companies;
   - conventional, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) 
     practitioners;
   - provider organizations such as hospital systems, subacute care 
     facilities and medical groups; 
   - health plan buyers, such as fully and self-insured employers; 
     and
   - academic institutions with CAM programs.
ABC codes are maintained by The Foundation for Integrative
Healthcare, a non-profit organization, and Alternative Link, a
privately held New Mexico company.
The Foundation for Integrative Healthcare (www.fihc.org) manages
information on the characteristics and outcomes of care to help
health industry organizations and practitioners make rational
decisions that improve public health, industry efficiencies and
socioeconomic development.
Alternative Link (www.alternativelink.com) delivers information
products and consulting services that help health industry
organizations and practitioners improve public health, business
efficiencies and socioeconomic development.
Individuals and organizations can secure rights to use ABC codes
in HIPAA transactions by registering at www.alternativelink.com by
March 16, 2003. Detailed information about the ABC code set is
available at the same web site. ABC coding experts can be reached
001/505'875'0001 (Mountain Time). Call volume is heavy.
Confirmation of the HHS requirement for ABC code set evaluator and
user registration can be obtained at 001/410'786'4160 (Eastern Time)
through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Transactions
and Code Sets Enforcement Office. Detailed information about the ABC
code set and the federal government's HIPAA code set evaluation and
naming process is available in April 10-11, May 29-30, September
25-26, December 10-11 and January 29-30 transcripts and downloads
from the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics at
www.ncvhs.hhs.gov.

Contact:

Cheri Dunkleberger
mailto:cheri.dunkleberger@alternativelink.com
Internet: http://www.alternativelink.com