Industry Groups & Caucuses

Connectivity Caucus

The Connectivity Caucus was established in January 2010 to develop and promote the improvement of EDI Network interconnectivity, the peer-to-peer connection between two networking organizations. Members of the Caucus represent major industry stakeholders from Finance, Healthcare, Insurance, Retail, Transportation and the Federal Government and include Value-Added-Networks (VANs), Clearinghouses, Service Bureaus and other third-party organizations that offer some form of communication to their clients. The Caucus brings together EDI Network Stakeholder organizations to encourage the efficient utilization of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and to seek out enhancements and solutions that are designed to improve the interconnect process.

The mission of the CONNECTIVITY CAUCUS is to bring consistency, reliability, dependability and process visibility to the commercial networking markets involved with the exchange of business-related documents, between and among the networking community, through the development and widespread adoption of standards and implementation guidelines.

KEY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:

1. Identify and organize current issues that address reliability, dependability, and process visibility by promoting best practices.
2. Identify areas where new standards and/or guidelines can be introduced.
3. Work with the appropriate standard-setting organization to develop and promote interconnectivity (peer-to-peer connection) standards and guidelines.
4. Work through the various industry channels to promote the adoption of new standards and guidelines, that will result in a consistent and auditable process with end-to-end visibility for all customers.
5. Provide a customer community voice to the networking community, to freely exchange ideas that will improve and facilitate networking.

Dental Caucus

The Dental Caucus is an informal industry group with a dental and dental benefits industry focused interest in the activities of the ASC X12 concerning healthcare transaction standards.

Key goals:

1. To advocate on EDI-related issues on behalf of the dental and dental benefits industry
2. To facilitate dental and dental benefits industry input into the ASC X12 standards-making process
3. To encourage dental and dental benefits industry participation in each of the EDI transaction workgroups so that the dental voice is heard in each workgroup and information from the workgroups is shared with the dental and dental benefits industry.
4. To educate the dental and dental benefits industry attending X12 about EDI-related issues.

The Dental Caucus co-chairs are Pat Van Dyke, ODS Companies (vandykp@odscompanies.com) and Timothy L. Brown, National Association of Dental Plans (tbrown@nadp.org).

The Dental Caucus meets just prior to regularly scheduled ASC X12 Committee Trimester meetings. Meetings are typically scheduled on Sunday, 5:00 - 7:00 pm.

Any registered attendee of the ACS X12 meeting may participate in the Dental Caucus meetings.

Representatives from the following organizations regularly participate in the Dental Caucus:

• American Dental Association
• Delta Dental of MI, OH and IN
• Delta Dental of Minnesota
• Delta Dental of California
• Delta Dental of New Jersey
• Delta Dental of Virginia
• Delta Dental Plans Association
• Denti-Cal
• Highmark
• Mercury Data Exchange
• MetLife
• National Association of Dental Plans
• ODS Companies
• United Concordia Companies Inc.
• Unites States Dept. of Veterans Affairs

Provider Caucus

The Provider Caucus is an informal industry group with an interest in the activities of ASC X12 concerning healthcare transaction standards.

Key goals include:

1. To advocate on EDI-related issues on behalf of providers
2. To facilitate provider input into the ASC X12 standards-making process
3. To encourage provider participation in each of the EDI transaction workgroups, so that provider input is heard in each workgroup and information from the workgroup is shared with other providers
4. To alert providers to issues being discussed that need provider input.
5. To educate providers attending X12 about EDI-related issues

The Provider Caucus co-chairs are Karyn White, BJC Healthcare (kmw1291@bjc.org) and Betsy Clore, Wake Forest University Health Sciences (bclore@wfubmc.edu).

The Provider Caucus meets during regularly scheduled ASC X12 Committee Trimester meetings. Meetings are typically scheduled for:

• Sunday, 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
• Tuesday, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
• Wednesday, 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Any registered attendee of the ASC X12 meeting may participate in Provider Caucus meetings, including those attending for one day only.

Some of the organizations that regularly participate in Provider Caucus include:

• American Dental Association
• American Hospital Association
• American Medical Association
• BJC Healthcare
• CAQH/CORE
• Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center of Seattle
• Clinitech Information System
• Department of Veterans Affairs
• Group Health Cooperative
• Intermountain Health Care
• Laboratory Corporation of America
• Mayo Clinic
• Montefiore Medical Center
• National Association of Chain Drug Stores
• Rensis Corporation
• Tampa General Hospital
• Truman Medical Centers
• Wake Forest University Health Sciences