The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data, announced the adoption of final criteria for its Practice Management System Accreditation Program (PMSAP). Following the standard, 60-day public review and comment period that began in December 2014, EHNAC has incorporated feedback from organizations and individuals as appropriate and has finalized and adopted the criteria for the PMSAP.
The program, which was jointly developed with the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), was initially announced in February 2014 and launched in July 2014 with the goal of delivering a new standard to the practice management system (PMS) community and a source of confidence within providers in their respective PMS partners. The first two organizations, which participated as betas for the program, were fully accredited in January 2015.
The accreditation program offers a comprehensive evaluation of PMS vendors in the areas of privacy, security, mandated standards and operating rules, and key operational functions. Additionally, the PMSAP assesses health information and oversight for meeting privacy and security, HIPAA and ACA requirements, as well as focuses on technical performance, business processes and resource management. Additionally, the program provides a review of the PMS vendor readiness to support and implement ICD-10 in 2015 and therefore a level of assurance to the provider community.
In addition to WEDI and EHNAC, the PMSAP advisory committee that has been working on developing and refining the draft criteria of the program includes executive representatives from AdvancedMD, the American Association of Professional Coders (AAPC), GE Healthcare, Healthpac Computer Systems, the Healthcare Administrative Technology Association (HATA), the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Medinformatix, NextGen Healthcare and more including other major national provider associations.
The Healthcare Administration Technology Association (HATA), the National Practice Management System Association, supports the PMSAP as a benchmark of quality for PMS providers. For more information on EHNAC’s Practice Management System Accreditation Program or to view the full criteria for the program, visit the EHNAC website.
About EHNAC
The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) is a voluntary, self-governing standards development organization (SDO) established to develop standard criteria and accredit organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data. These entities include accountable care organizations, electronic health networks, EPCS vendors, eprescribing solution providers, financial services firms, health information exchanges, health information service providers, management service organizations, medical billers, outsourced service providers, payers, practice management system vendors and third-party administrators.
EHNAC was founded in 1993 and is a tax-exempt 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization. Guided by peer evaluation, the EHNAC accreditation process promotes quality service, innovation, cooperation and open competition in healthcare. To learn more, visit www.ehnac.org, contact info@ehnac.org, or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.