The National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) announced today its alignment with the Accredited Standards Committee X12 (ASC X12) and Linxus, which collectively represent hundreds of providers, health plans, pharmacies, and systems developers, to ensure consistent interpretation and provide guidance on operationalizing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requirements for standards, implementation guides and operating rules and unified input into the policies being developed to support the goals of the legislation.

Continuing to simplify health care administrative and financial functions has significant potential to reduce the cost of doing business for providers, health plans, and pharmacies in the United States. NCPDP, ASC X12 and Linxus are uniquely positioned with their existing organizational support structures, knowledge of standards development, and broad industry participation to be able to support the Administration’s goal of meaningful savings through administrative simplification.

The participants joined together several months ago to provide technical guidance during the drafting of the various health care reform bills. The group will continue to provide regulators with technical guidance during implementation of the administrative simplification reforms passed as part of PPACA. PPACA’s new reform measures build on and strengthen existing administrative simplification laws previously defined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.

These organizations support the need for the development and maintenance of standards that meet the needs of all stakeholders in health care. It is important to build on the strengths of the current infrastructure, processes and standards to effect a seamless transition. Common operational requirements for stakeholders would provide consistency of implementation across the country to avoid unnecessary variations that add complexity and cost to implementation of such standards. For more information contact chair@x12.org.

About Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12

ASC X12, chartered by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1979, develops EDI standards and documents for national and global markets. With more than 315 X12 EDI standards and increasing X12 XML schemas, ASC X12 enhances business processes, reduces costs and expands organizational reach. Members include standards experts from health care, insurance, transportation, finance, government, supply chain and other industries. www.X12.org

About Linxus

Linxus is a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) membership organization consisting of hospitals, physicians, and health plans. Their mission is to achieve administrative savings for providers and health plans by working collaboratively to identify best practices and remove barriers to adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI) standards. Linxus members have already committed thousands of hours of valuable staff time towards these collaborative activities. Through collective leadership the members are directly reducing administrative waste from the U.S. health care system and transparently showing others what’s possible from adopting standards. www.linxus.net

About NCPDP

Founded in 1977, NCPDP is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited, Standards Development Organization with over 1500 members representing virtually every sector of the pharmacy services industry. Our diverse membership provides leadership and healthcare business solutions through education and standards, created using the consensus building process. NCPDP has been named in federal legislation, including HIPAA and the MMA. NCPDP members have created standards such as the Telecommunication Standard and Batch Standard, the SCRIPT Standard for e-Prescribing, the Manufacturers Rebate Standard and more to improve communication within the pharmacy industry. Our data services include the NCPDP Provider Identification Number, a unique identifier of over 75,000 pharmacies, and HCIdea, “The Prescriber Identity Solution.” For more information about NCPDP Standards, Data Services, Educational Programs and Work Group meetings, go online at www.ncpdp.org or call (480) 477-1000.