CAQH and the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission are joining forces to help encourage application developers participating in the new payer-focused CAQH Endpoint Directory to get accredited through EHNAC and UDAP.org's Trusted Dynamic Registration and Authorization Accreditation Program.

WHY IT MATTERS
TDRAAP is meant to help healthcare organizations and app developers show their ability to use trusted digital certificates for endpoint identity, registration and authentication, the organizations note, while also attributing discovery for electronic healthcare transactions in real time. 

Accreditation through the program "affirms an app's technical and security credentials and gives health plans the confidence they need to connect and share member data," said CAQH and EHNAC officials. It's offered in two versions:

• TDRAAP-Basic is designed for consumer-facing app devs using individual sign-on for access to one patient’s data at a time.  

• TDRAAP-Comprehensive is aimed at organizations that hope to show full HIPAA and HITECH compliance and validation of all the UDAP.org technical workflows that they support.

To help nudge app developers to achieve TDRAAP accreditation, CAQH and EHNAC say they'll work together to lower the cost of accreditation for developers who participate in the CAQH Endpoint Directory. Those who are interested can learn more here.

THE LARGER TREND
Built with help from Edifecs, the CAQH Endpoint Directory was launched in April, designed to foster more widespread data sharing among app developers, health plans and state Medicaid agencies as new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rules take effect.

The Interoperability and Patient Access requires CMS-regulated plans to enable consumers to access and transfer their healthcare information using a third-party app of their choice.

This is not a capability that many payers are accustomed to, so the new CAQH directory lists FHIR endpoints and apps to help health plans and others with interoperability rule compliance.

As CAQH notes, there are more than 300,000 possible plan and app connections, so it launched this centralized directory to help developers and plans to find – and validate – those endpoints.

ON THE RECORD
"The ability to efficiently register and authenticate endpoints is a core component of healthcare interoperability," said Lee Barrett, CEO of EHNAC, in a statement. "This joint initiative by EHNAC and CAQH will ultimately result in consumers having greater access to their healthcare data and the goals of the CMS final rule being met."

"We are proud to be partnering with EHNAC to encourage healthcare organizations and app developers to become TDRAAP accredited," added CAQH president Robin Thomashauer. "Our goal is to enhance the level of trust and transparency in the endpoints ecosystem so safe and reliable consumer apps can proliferate."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.