Claims Attachments Redux

"The time has come," the walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
The HIPAA law enacted by Congress in 1996 included provisions requiring HHS to develop regulation around the standards used for electronic claims attachments.

In September of 2005, nearly 10 years later, HHS published a notice of proposed rulemaking for claims attachments.

The Healthcare Reform legislation recently signed into law 14 years later includes provisions requiring HHS to develop regulation around the standards used for electronic claims attachments.

Of shoes--
The proposed rule would have named the X12 275 and 277 transactions and ...

and ships--
the HL7 Implementation guides using CDA Release 1.0.
and sealing-wax--
Since then, new legislation and regulation under ARRA and HITECH pave the way for information exchange between healthcare providers and patients using...

Of cabbages--
the ASTM CCR...

and kings--
and the HL7 CDA Release 2.0 standard using the HL7 CCD Implementation guide..

And why the sea is boiling hot--
In this time of patient and provider engagement, we (HL7) should consider updating these implementation guides to make use of the work that has been done over the last five years to take advantage of the CCD templates.

And whether pigs have wings."
This won't happen without your help.  Discussions are starting in HL7 as to whether these guides should be updated to make use of the work that has been done in IHE, HL7 and ANSI/HITSP.  Please engage and use your voice and expertise.

For more information on what I'm proposing, see what I wrote late last year regarding moving attachments forwards.

P.S. Applogies to Lewis Carrol