About the HIPAA OTD Library

HIPAA is an acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This Act is designed to protect patients. Among other things, it makes specifications affecting standards of treatment and privacy rights. These specifications provide a number of standardized transactions that can be used for such things as a healthcare eligibility inquiry or a healthcare claim.

For more information on HIPAA, visit the following Web sites:

• http://www.cms.hhs.gov

• http://www.hipaa-dsmo.org

• http://www.wedi.org/

• http://www.claredi.com/

• http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/admnsimp/

For more information on NCPDP, visit the official NCPDP web site at this address:

• http://www.ncpdp.org/

The HIPAA Object Type Definition (OTD) Library provides OTDs for the 2000 Standard and 2000 Addenda HIPAA messages.

HIPAA messages have a message structure, which indicates how data elements are organized and related to each other for a particular EDI transaction. In Java CAPS, message structures are defined as OTDs. Each OTD consists of the following:

• Physical hierarchy: The predefined way in which envelopes, segments, and data elements are organized to describe a particular HIPAA EDI transaction.

• Delimiters: The specific predefined characters that are used to mark the beginning and end of envelopes, segments, and data elements.

• Properties: The characteristics of a data element, such as the length of each element, default values, and indicators that specify attributes of a data element, for example, whether it is required, optional, or repeating.

The HIPAA OTD Library provides HIPAA OTDs that you can use to build Java CAPS Projects for interfacing with HIPAA systems. You can use the OTDs with eGate Integrator or in combination with eXchange Integrator and eGate Integrator.