Introduction > Acknowledgements in EDI

EDI, the Electronic Data Interchange, is a very well designed system to exchange computer files in between different machines and computer infra structures. One important part in the flawless execution of data interchanges plays the acknowledgment. The sender of a files wants to have a verification that the interchange was successful regardless of further processing.

The simplest form of acknowledgment is the TA1. It is a single line transaction that reports back that a data interchange has been received at such and such date and time. While a lot better than delivering a data file into a black hole, the TA1 does not gives us anymore information whether the file was recognized and accepted.

That is why another mechanism was needed. The next level of acknowledgment is the so called functional acknowledgment. EDI files consist of an envelope and one or several so called functional groups, commonly known by GS-GE loops. The purpose of the functional acknowledgment is to report back to the sender type of group that was received and on each transaction set, each ST-SE loop, whether it was accepted or where syntax mistakes where found. In HIPAA we use currently the 999 transaction set for the functional acknowledgment. This transaction basically confers the results of a HIPAA compliance check back to the sender with clear indications where and why a particular element was found in violation. The 999 greatly improves on the TA1 and allows for a "learning system", meaning that the conversation between sender and receiver will become better over time if the sender implements fixes to eventual deficiencies.

Just for completion there is even a higher level of acknowledgment. In HIPAA we only use the 277CA, the unsolicited claim status acknowledgment that in reports on each individual claim whether it was accepted into the adjudication system.