CommonWell Health Alliance, an organization working to increase interoperability in the healthcare arena, added its 34th member: the Social Security Administration.
Here are four things to know about the partnership.
• The SSA is the first government agency to join CommonWell.
• The SSA requests over 15 million medical records annually from almost every healthcare provider as it makes decisions on over 3 million disability claims per year.
• As the number of providers using health IT increases, the amount of time it takes to complete a disability claim will decrease, according to SSA representatives. The CommonWell partnership will aid this process.
• The SSA has been a member of the eHealth Exchange since its inception and was the first federal agency to interoperate using it. As of this month, the SSA has partnered with 48 organizations across 7,000 facilities in 33 states to exchange information.