Albert Ghafari

The administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish national standards for electronic healthcare transactions. This includes assigning healthcare providers a National Provider Identifier (NPI), a 10-digit numeric provider identifier that will be used in standard electronic transactions, such as healthcare claims. As of a legislated date of May 23, 2007, each participating provider will have one and only one NPI, regardless of practice locations or settings.