Unique Health Plan Identifier Update

As I mentioned in a recent post to this blog, the recent HHS unified agenda states that the proposed rulemaking for a HIPAA-mandated unique health plan identifier was withdrawn. This surprised me as I had understood that HHS was close to publishing a proposed rule, and there is no privacy issue associated with this identifier. With help from my colleague Theresa Defino, I have learned that HHS has gone back to the drawing board on the unique health plan identifier and the agency therefore described the proposed rule as withdrawn because HHS does not currently have an anticipated publication date for that proposed rule. But it is still in the regulatory pipeline.