A National Patient Identifier Would Be Totally Awesome!
Fun Fact: Did you know that congress actually has a gag order preventing Health and Human Services(HHS) from even discussing the idea of a national health identifier? Well fear no more... word on the street is that this might finally change . America's multi-payer system is already complex enough. We also have to contend with a lack of a national health identifier? Certainly national health identifiers have issues, but it is still a monumental step in the right direction. While a national patient identifier will not fully solve the patient linking and matching problem, it will go quite a long way in improving the status quo. I've spent way too much time thinking about how such an identifier should be constructed and issued. Here are some main points: It should be numeric so it is easy to enter via a number pad/telephone. It should, in-part, be defined by the end user. For example the first 10 digits could be someone's phone number It should contain a check d