12/4/2018
ATLANTA — The National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) members voted to support the LexisNexis® Risk Solutions LexID® as a universal patient identifier (UPI) at their recent workgroup meeting in November. This is an important step for the healthcare industry to address preventable errors by helping to ensure accurate identification of patients using a UPI. It assists in uniquely identifying each patient throughout disparate healthcare systems.
By approving the UPI as a recognized patient identifier, industry partners will be able to use the LexID as the UPI in their pharmacy billing and e-prescribing transactions. LexID uses a proprietary linking technology in combination with a unique identifier to resolve, match and manage identity information.
“Implementing a universal patient identifier was a significant step, not just for pharmacy but for all of the healthcare industry,” said Craig Ford, vice president, Pharmacy, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “It is imperative that we have the capability to link an individual patient between disparate health information systems. From a patient safety standpoint, accurately identifying each patient is a must for optimal patient engagement.”
NCPDP supports the UPI value being used as a patient identifier within the pharmacy billing and e-prescribing transactions. Currently, the UPI can be used only to validate a patient’s dual eligible status by state, federal or regulatory programs.
In January 2019, LexID will join the NCPDP UPI as the UPIs available for use for this purpose. With the new HIPAA billing standard expected in 2022, the UPI’s defined use as a patient identifier will be greatly expanded to “enhancing the accuracy of patient data exchange,” which will allow industry partners to use the designated UPI values for most of their pharmacy billing transactions.
NCPDP is a not-for-profit Standards Development Organization within the pharmacy services industry. It works with its members to develop and promote industry standards and business solutions that improve patient safety and health outcomes, while also decreasing costs.
For more information about the capabilities of LexID, visit our website. Additionally, LexisNexis Risk Solutions experts will discuss benefits of the UPI at a free webinar, “Beyond Dispensing: The role pharmacies play in their community” on Thursday, December 06, 2018, at 2 p.m. EST.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data, sophisticated analytics platforms and technology solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions and RELX.
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