How does NEHEN work?

NEHEN has created a common, member-neutral alternative designed to work equally well for all payers and providers. NEHEN provides a method to exchange transactions from participant to participant, without mandating how the service is delivered to the end user, minimizing the impact of NEHEN infrastructure and implementation on each member's organization. NEHEN delivers an ANSI standard transaction to each member's doorstep, and each member organization chooses how that transaction is processed internally.

The only prerequisite is that all transactions flowing over the network need to be in an ANSI format. Having this requirement allows members to achieve significant improvements in the speed and uniformity of many core administrative processes.

Each provider organization connects directly to each payer (via frame-relay, VPN, or HTTPS), eliminating the need for third-party handling costs, multiple technologies, and central databases. This secure network provides a high- speed connection for sending and receiving patient data in real-time or in batch.

While most provider organizations have integrated NEHEN functions directly into their own management systems, others have chosen to use NEHENLite, NEHEN's own Web-based application.

There are no transaction fees. All members pay a flat monthly membership fee regardless of how many transactions they exchange. The monthly membership fee covers the cost of managing and coordinating consortium activities and the development of common work products like NEHENLite.