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WEDI Newsletter | July 2018
Executive Corner | Join the WEDI Women in Health IT
WEDI Releases New Dental Claims White Paper | Webinar Update
Media Spotlight: WEDI Featured in EHR Intelligence
Featured Video On Demand | Workgroup Roundup | Latest Member News
Each month, the Executive Corner provides prominent WEDI leaders an opportunity to share their perspectives on a variety of topics impacting healthcare – from legislative matters and industry events to the headline-grabbing issues of the day.  
Dear WEDI Members,

You’ve heard us say it before, WEDI conferences are THE venue where members and non-members alike are offered extensive educational and networking opportunities all while experiencing today’s best practices in Health IT firsthand. This was most evident during our Spring Conference in Scottsdale where we had the privilege to hear from Dr. Donald Rucker who joined us for a very candid discussion on ONC initiatives. We also heard from a host of industry thought leaders who discussed emerging trends and case studies focusing on timely topics impacting the healthcare industry including: blockchain, FHIR, all-payer claims databases, prior authorization, value based care, the 2017 CAQH Index and th e new CMS New Medicare Card Project.

Now, as we gear up for our Summer Forum next week in Chicago, we are eagerly awaiting the deep diving, informative sessions on Prior Authorization and Attachments, two of the toughest hurdles in healthcare and the most requested topics that your fellow WEDI members and industry colleagues want to hear more about.

The first day of the Forum, focusing on attachments, will feature a presentation by Madhu Annadata, Director, Division of National Standards – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Day Two will feature a series of high-level discussions centered around prior authorization, FHIR , including remarks by Dr. Thomas Mason, Chief Medical Officer in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as well as HL7's Dr. Charles Jaffe.

So if you have not already registered, we invite you to be a part of this exciting two-day event where we’ll convene health IT professionals across payer, provider, government and healthcare technology vendors to explore these pressing challenges the healthcare industry continues to face as well as possible solutions. 

We look forward to seeing you all in Chicago!

Charles Stellar , WEDI President & CEO
Following a series of engaging conversations at the National Spring WEDI conference around women in healthcare, we have established a WEDI Women in Health IT (WWHIT) group. The purpose of WWHIT is to foster relationships and promote the advancement of women across the healthcare industry. The overwhelming support by more than 100 women at the organizing breakfast in Scottsdale, shows the leadership, commitment, and interest in making this a fixture at WEDI. 

The WWHIT will provide the leadership and the setting for a host of opportunities to engage with fellow group members including:

  • Mentoring Program
  • Listserv to help coordinate and communicate: WEDI-WWHIT@lists.wedi.org
  • Discussion-based webinars at least every other month, starting this September
  • Special events provided at WEDI conferences with the next taking place in October
  • Provide recommendations for programming at conferences
  • WWHIT features on wedi.org
  • Workspace with discussion topics and resources in the iMeet Workplace
  • Connect with other women’s groups including business, government relations and special resources.

Interested in joining the WWHIT workgroup? Contact Samantha Hovey at sholvey@wedi.org.
In early July , the WEDI Dental Subworkgroup released a  dental claims white paper . The document offers guidance on populating the HIPAA adopted version of the electronic dental claim transaction from data reported on the American Dental Association Dental Claim Form.

According to the paper: “With today’s focus on conducting claims and other administrative transactions electronically, it is important to have the ability to map the data from the ADA Dental Claim Form to the ASC X12N 005010X224A2 Health Care Claim: Dental (837D) electronic transaction.” As a result, the WEDI Dental Subworkgroup has created an instructional guide to assist users in populating the current HIPAA adopted version of the electronic dental claim transaction with the data from the ADA Dental Claim Form.

The WEDI Dental Subworkgroup focuses on the unique requirements for dental providers, payers, clearinghouses, and practice management systems (PMS) as they relate to HIPAA, HITECH, ARRA, and other rules and regulations impacting the dental industry. Their dental claims white paper is available for  download on the WEDI website .
Claims are from Mars, Attachments are from Venus
Thursday, July 26th (1:00-2:00ET)
 
Join us for a FREE webinar during which you will learn the five critical steps necessary to achieve a happy union between claims processing and attachments workflows.
Speakers will include:

John Kelly, Principle Business Advisor at Edifecs and WEDI Board Member
A nationally recognized health information exchange expert, Kelly provides strategic consulting to Edifecs customers, specializing in information exchange and applying the principles of supply chain integration to the healthcare delivery lifecycle. His wide-ranging experience includes serving as CIO of healthcare network provider NaviNet, Director of eBusiness Architecture at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and managing director of his own health IT consulting firm. Kelly also served as the architect and technical lead for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ statewide HIE project. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors for WEDI, as well as the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium.

Sergiu Rata, Senior Director, Product Management at Edifecs
Sergiu Rata brings more than a decade’s expertise in healthcare and integration experience in both product management and engineering. Sergiu is the Senior Director of Product Management at Edifecs and is responsible for product management and strategy for Transaction Management product. Sergiu holds a master’s degree in Computer Science as well as a Pragmatic Marketing certification in Product Management.
Clinical documentation improvement (CDI) needs are quickly becoming a top issue for healthcare organizations, especially as the push for nationwide interoperability continues to grow. Improving CDI will have long-lasting effects on the industry, impacting both providers and patients.

Clinical documentation in all forms and formats is a problem and challenge for providers, health plans, and other entities that all need the data, WEDI Chair-Elect Jay Eisenstock told EHRIntelligence.com.

To read the complete article, visit   EHR Intelligence .
For nearly 30 years, WEDI has supported electronic data interchange and facilitated administrative simplification in healthcare. In our latest video, Lee Barrett, Executive Director of EHNAC describes what makes its promise and relevance just as important today.
Visit the new WEDI Vimeo Channel to view our entire video library!
All of our workgroups have special projects and activities underway, here’s just a brief highlight of a few:

The Remittance Advice & Payment Subworkgroup has completed the content for the EFT Enrollment Security paper, which is now going through the formatting and approval process. The group is now submitting project proposals for a webinar on ERA balancing and a paper on the PLB segment.

The Claim Status Subworkgroup is focused on the exchange of claim status request/response (276/277), the business issues that prevent its adoption and
potential ROI savings for both providers and health plans. Sign up for the
WEDI-ClaimStatus@lists.wedi.org and plan to participate in the active discussion on Friday, August 3 at Noon ET to share what works and what can be improved to increase the exchange of claim status information that will drive down the need for phone calls.

The WEDI Eligibility and Benefits Subworkgroup has received the results from the survey sent to the WEDI Membership asking a series of questions in an effort to determine the biggest barriers facing payers, provider and vendors/clearinghouse. The Eligibility Subworkgroup will be reviewing the data over the next few months and is planning to discuss/share the results at the Fall WEDI Conference.

The Genomics Workgroup has submitted its second white paper for publication. The paper’s title is “Making Precision Medicine the Standard of Care - A Roadmap for Building a Clinical Genomics Program, Part 1 - Clinical & Business Drivers”. This first part of a two-part white paper will focus on the complex issues of executive and clinical leadership decision-making processes to start a clinical genomics program. Just to list a few of the topics covered, they include the cost and reimbursement analysis, the adoption of new clinical guidelines and policies, clinical workflow concerns, information privacy and security, and consent-to-share data requirements.

The workgroup will begin writing the next white paper in August, Part 2 – Constructing the IT Infrastructure. If you have a technical background, or any interest on the subject, please join them.

The Privacy & Security Workgroup’s goal is to facilitate the implementation of HIPAA Privacy and Security requirements within many variations of covered entities, business associates and interested parties across the health care industry. The workgroup supports the industry via practical checklists and other educational materials, including but not limited to, white papers, issue briefs, webinars, Policy Advisory Groups, collaboration with other organizations with similar interests, presentations to NCVHS, presentations at WEDI and NIST meetings, response to FAQ’s and other initiatives.

The workgroup has a good group of members, but is currently in need of several co-chairs to lead the group. The workgroup members bring significant expertise and ability to support the co-chairs, and need co-chairs to provide the organization and leadership for the group to continue to demonstrate the excellent results they have shown.

If you are interested in acting as one of the group of co-chairs (you would not be alone!), please contact Sam Holvey at sholvey@wedi.org .

The Telehealth Workgroup has wrapped up work on its Telehealth Resource Guide. It is currently under review and will be published soon. The workgroup has talked about its next project and has decided to explore the barriers that are preventing the adoption of telehealth services. The intent of this work is to explore the different barriers, conduct a survey to get input from the industry on specific barriers they have encountered and how they were resolved, and provide examples of organizations that successfully overcame the barriers. Please join the Telehealth Workgroup on the 3 rd Wednesdays of the monthly at 4 pm ET.
Health Plans/Systems
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
Technology Solutions/Vendors
 

 
 
 
 

If you are a WEDI Corporate Member organization and would like to have your press releases included in a future edition of the WEDI Monthly Newsletter, please email with a link to your press release to tom@andersoni.com.
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) is the leading authority on the use of health IT to improve healthcare information exchange in order to enhance the quality of care, improve efficiency and to reduce costs of the American healthcare system. Formed in 1991 by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), WEDI was named in the 1996 HIPAA legislation as an advisor to HHS and continues to fulfill that role today.
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