Setting the standard.

Beginning Oct. 16, 2002, hospitals will no longer be able to submit claims to third party payers electronically unless the claims are in standard format. As a result, claims formerly submitted in UB92 (currently the defacto institutional claims standard) or other traditional formats will need to be submitted in X12N 837, which is a standard developed by the Accredited Standards Committee of the American National Standards Institute. This requirement is yet another challenge for hospitals resulting from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).