ehr onc final certification - Department of Health Care Services

eason we have permitted either to be used for purposes of certification. We also
understand that eligible professionals and eligible hospitals will have to use the standard
that the immunization registry or Immunization Information System in their jurisdiction
can receive and, as a result, we have adopted the two most common standards utilized for
the transmission of immunization information.
Comment. One commenter noted that it would be very helpful to provide a
source for mapping from the NDC code on the vaccine packaging to the CVX/MVX
codes used for interoperability, in anticipation of supporting barcode scanning of
vaccines. Another commenter noted that while some mapping has occurred between
CPT and CVX, they were not aware of a translation map from NDC to CVX. They also
stated that even though a list of CVX codes is available, they were not aware of a
downloadable immunization database using CVX codes. They considered this lack of a
database a significant burden and impediment to compliance. The commenter concluded
by suggesting that CPT codes be used instead of CVX codes, because CPT codes are
used for billing purposes and would be readily available.
Response. The CDC maintains an openly available list of updated CVX codes as
well as a mapping of CVX codes to CPT codes on their website. 4 Moreover, we believe
that CVX codes are more appropriate than CPT codes because as the commenter
referenced, CPT codes are used for billing purposes. In that regard, we believe that
because there is a publicly available mapping between CVX and CPT, it would not be
difficult or burdensome to map CPT codes to CVX codes. NDC codes were not adopted
as a standard to represent immunizations and we do not believe that requiring their use
4 www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/iis/stds/cpt.htm
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