National Provider Identification

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was a law passed by congress with the intention of protecting patient privacy. However, it has been routinely criticized for being overly vague and requiring more medical bureaucracy where there is already excess.

One of the lesser know provisions of HIPAA requires doctors to receive a National Provider Identifier (NPI). The NPI is administrated by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as this identifier will be required for all Medicare/aid payments. Although HIPAA is supposed to be simplified, the "simplified" version of the NPI is 36 pages.

Clearly, this is an unnecessary intrusion. There is no need for the federal government to keep tabs on doctors in such a systematic fashion. While I can see how this may reduce fraud, the responsibility for fraud reduction should lie with the states who administer the distribution of Medicare/aid funds anyway.