Good news

The PPACA creates several new HIPAA electronic transaction requirements which begin to take in effect in 2013 right around the time that health plans must become compliant with the complex and expensive 5010 electronic transactions standards and the ICD-10-CM code set changes. I therefore was pleased to learn in a Health Date Management article that an industry group called the Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchage (CORE), a CAHQ initiative.  Health Data Management reports that

 Mandates in the health reform law to adopt "operating rules" for a series of existing and new HIPAA transactions between 2013 and 2016 should easily be achievable, two consultants familiar with the health care electronic data interchange business say.
Industry stakeholders have worked for five years [though CORE] to reach consensus on the rules, which seek to make electronic claims and related transactions far more uniform than they are today, says Rachel Foerster, principal at Rachel Foerster & Associates Ltd., Beach Park, Ill.