Healthcare IT Transition Group Offers Fast, Low-Cost Updates for Provider Taxonomy Seekers

(PRLEAP.COM) Tulsa OK - Healthcare IT Transition Group (HITTG), one of the nation’s leading authorities on National Provider Identifier (NPI) implementation, has developed a low-cost data service for providers, billers and clearinghouses that have discovered they need to add Provider Taxonomy codes to their billing databases. Provider Taxonomy is a standard code set that specifies a healthcare provider’s specialty or care setting in electronic health insurance claims, and has been adopted by health plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, as a way to resolve NPI ambiguities.

"Our research showed as far back as 2004 that Provider Taxonomy was going to be a key to NPI implementation," said HITTG Chief Analyst Martin Jensen. "We’ve been trying to spread the word about sensible approaches to the use of taxonomy, especially in regard to the various providers that may appear on claims as Referring Providers, Attending Physicians and the like. We’ve presented at national conferences and developed publications, webinars and videos on the topic, but now we have come to aid our provider community more directly, by actually delivering the codes they need to get claims paid by improving crosswalk profiles."

HITTG released research in April that showed that as many as 57% of the nation’s health plans were employing the taxonomy code as part of their NPI crosswalking strategy, to match incoming 837 claims against their legacy provider identifiers. Unfortunately, that same research showed 44% of providers were having difficulties satisfying those same requirements (source: http:// hittransition.com/npisurvey0804/ ).

"In the run up to the May 23 NPI compliance date, providers and their vendors hurried to add NPI to their lookup tables. Even small practices may have hundreds of providers that refer patients in, while hospitals will have thousands or tens of thousands. A reference lab may have provider tables that exceed six figures. We’re giving those folks a way to add accurate taxonomy values for literally pennies apiece," said Jensen. "A payer may accept claims without taxonomies, or with default values provided by clearinghouses. But once the claim gets through the door, it may be held up for matching if the taxonomy sent does not match the payer’s expectations. Sending a taxonomy designated by the provider on their own NPI record is the surest way to keep the claim from pending."

The Taxonomizer service offers comprehensive taxonomy and affiliated state license number updates in as little as two business days. TaxonomizerPlus adds the Other Identifiers listed on the provider’s NPI record, such as Medicare OSCAR, UPIN and Medicaid IDs. The service, based on National Plan & Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is offered separately, or can be provided as part of HITTG’s NPI Lookup service, which performs an advanced search for NPI registry data, including NPI numbers and state licenses, based on provider names, addresses and other data. The NPI matching service developed by HITTG, employing cutting edge matching algorithms, provides superior NPI search for provider databases, and offers a fast, low-cost batch method to search NPI data. HITTG also provides pre-processed NPI directory files suitable for use within typical healthcare information technology environments.

For more information, visit http://hittransition.com/datasvcs/ or contact Healthcare IT Transition Group at 918-392-0567.

Taxonomizer and TaxonomizerPlus are servicemarks of Healthcare IT Transition Group.

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