NPDB-HIPDB History

1986 The Health Care Quality Improvement Act

• Congress passes the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA). This legislation is intended to protect peer review bodies from private money damage liability and to prevent incompetent practitioners from moving state to state without disclosure or discovery of previous damaging or incompetent performance.
   
• President Ronald Reagan signs Title IV of Public Law 99-660, the HCQIA, which led to the National Practitioner Data Bank's (NPDB) establishment.

1988 Development of the NPDB

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr) begins developing the NPDB. HRSA contracts with Unisys Corporation to develop and operate the NPDB.

1989 Final Regulations Published

• Final NPDB regulations (45 CFR part 60) are published in the Federal Register.
   
• NPDB Executive Committee convenes its first meeting.

1990 NPDB Opens to Support Peer Review and Credentialing

• Operating out of Camarillo, California, NPDB opens September 1st and begins collecting reports on medical malpractice payments and adverse licensure, clinical privileges and professional society membership actions taken against practitioners. Hospitals, health care entities and state licensing boards begin querying the NPDB.
   
• The system is designed to be self-supporting through query fees. All transactions are paper-based.
   
• Average query response time is six weeks.
   
• The first NPDB Guidebook is published, providing policy guidance to NPDB users.

1991 NPDB Processes Queries

• NPDB processes 809,900 queries, an average of 16,000 names per week.

1992 Electronic Querying Introduced

• Electronic querying is introduced using new QPRAC software, version 1.0. Queries may be submitted via modem or diskette; responses are returned on paper. Average query response time is reduced to one week.

1993 NPDB Receives NCQA Endorsement and Federal Leadership Award

• Endorsing the value of NPDB data, the National Committee for Quality Assurance adopts an accreditation standard encouraging health maintenance organizations to query the NPDB.
   
• BHPr’s Division of Quality Assurance (DQA), which manages the NPDB, receives a 1993 Federal Leadership Award for its efforts to reduce paper processing by the NPDB.
   
• NPDB accepts query payments by credit card.

1994 Practitioners May Add Statements to Reports

• A practitioner with a report in the NPDB may now add his or her own statement to the report, which will be disclosed to queriers.
   
• NPDB implements automated fee collection through Electronic Funds Transfer. Queriers can preauthorize the NPDB to debit their bank accounts directly for query fees.
   
• QPRAC version 2.0 is introduced, allowing the NPDB to respond electronically to queries.
   
• HRSA contracts with SRA International to develop and operate the 2nd Generation NPDB.
   
• More than 1.5 million queries are processed this year, an average of 30,000 per week. More than half of all queries are electronic.
   
• Average query response time is two to three days.

1995 NPDB Collects More Than 100,000 Reports

• All paper queries, except practitioner self-queries, are eliminated.
   
• Reports submitted to the NPDB exceed 100,000.
   
• SRA International begins operating the 2nd Generation of the NPDB in Fairfax, Virginia.
   
• Voluntary queries (submitted by entities not mandated by law to query) outnumber required queries for the first time.
   
• Responses to queries now include whether Secretarial Review of the report has been requested and the status of any such review.

1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

• The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, acting through the Office of Inspector General (OIG), was directed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 to create the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank (HIPDB) to combat fraud and abuse in heath insurance and health care delivery. Health care fraud burdens the nation with enormous financial costs and threatens the quality of health care and patient safety. The HIPDB's authorizing statute is more commonly referred to as Section 1128E of the Social Security Act. Final regulations governing the HIPDB are codified at 45 CFR Part 61.
   
• NPDB users can now submit reports and update registration information electronically using QPRAC version 3.0.
   
• The Blizzard of ’96 blankets the Washington, D.C. area with 20 inches of snow. Although no NPDB staff are able to get to the office, the NPDB processes more than 20,000 queries.
   
• More than 2.7 million queries are processed this year, an average of 52,000 per week.
   
• Average query response time is six hours or less.

1997 HRSA Asked to Coordinate NPDB with New Data Bank

• Because of the NPDB’s success, HHS Office of Inspector General asks BHPr’s Division of Quality Assurance to design, develop and operate the new Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank (HIPDB)—a health care fraud and abuse prevention database. By law, NPDB and HIPDB must coordinate operations.
   
• NPDB queriers begin receiving Medicare and Medicaid exclusion information on practitioners.

1998 Health Care Entities Query More than 15 Million Times

• State licensing boards, hospitals, and other health care entities have queried the NPDB more than 15 million times since 1990.
   
• NPDB processes more than 1,000 Secretarial Reviews of reports since 1990.
   
• Reports submitted to the NPDB exceed 200,000.

1999 NPDB and HIPDB Begin Operating on the Internet

• For the first time, the NPDB and the HIPDB begin accepting reports and single name queries submitted through a secure Internet site using the new Integrated Querying and Reporting Service.
   
• More than 3.2 million NPDB queries are processed during the year, an average of six queries a minute, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or a query approximately every 10 seconds.
   
• Average query response time is four to six hours.

2000 NPDB Turns 10 Years Old

• NPDB enters the new millennium Y2K-trouble free.
   
• NPDB celebrates 10 years of successful operation.
• More than 3.2 million NPDB queries are processed during the year, an average of six queries a minute, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or one query approximately every 10 seconds.
• HIPDB opens for querying.
• Average query response time is reduced from six to four hours.
• The Data Banks introduce the Interface Control Document (ICD) Transfter Program (ITP), an alternative to the IQRS for large-volume queriers and reporters who wish to interface their own data processing systems directly with the Data Banks to submit reports and queries.

2001 On-Line Self-Query Service Debuts

• Improvements are made to the self-query service as self-queriers are able to submit self-query data electronically through the NPDB-HIPDB’s secure web site. After transmitting a self-query, the process is completed by printing and mailing the notarized self-query application to the Data Banks. Self-queries are processed within 48 hours and self-query status can be tracked on-line.
• DQA becomes the Division of Practitioner Data Banks (DPDB).

2002 NPDB Receives Recognition

• The Division of Practitioner Data Banks receives an Electronic Government Trailblazer Award for the NPDB-HIPDB. This award highlights Federal, State, local, and international government programs that have successfully implemented the most innovative information systems in e-Government. The award-winning programs are user-friendly on-line models for effective e-Government.
• The Data Banks introduce the on-line Report Response Service for efficient processing of self-queries, while maintaining strict security standards. The Report Response Service allows report subjects to electronically maintain current address information with the Data Banks; add, modify, or remove Subject Statements; initiate or withdraw disputes; and elevate or withdraw requests for Secretarial Review on-line. Previously, subjects performed these functions via paper correspondence.

2003 IQRS Introduces On-Line Entity and Agent Registration

• The Data Banks introduce on-line entity and authorized agent registration, replacing the paper registration forms and paper-based registration process. On-screen instructions and help file information provide immediate assistance, enabling simplified on-line registration.
   
• Registered users of the Data Banks reach 16,000.

2004 Data Banks Win 2004 Excellence.gov Award

• The NPDB-HIPDB program is named an “Excellence.gov Top Five Award” finalist – the highest award given – in a ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. Excellence.gov was established to recognize the best practices in Federal Electronic Government (e-Gov) applications. The awards are given to Federal organizations for their outstanding information technology (IT) achievements in the public service arena. The Excellence.gov Awards focused on governance models used in e-Government projects that cross organizational boundaries.
• The Data Banks make IQRS report and query history available to users, enabling users to obtain a summary of subjects that have been previously queried on (or reported on) over the past four years by their entity.
• BHPr reorganizes and renames the former DPDB to the Practitioner Data Banks Branch (PDBB).

2005 Querying and Reporting XML Service (QRXS) Introduced

• The Data Banks introduce the QRXS, an alternative to the IQRS and the ITP for users who wish to interface their own data processing system directly with the Data Banks to submit reports and receive responses using industry standard XML format.
• Average query response time is now less than two hours.
• The NPDB has processed over 36 million queries since 1991 and maintains over 375,000 reports.
• The HIPDB has processed over 5 million queries since 2000 and maintains over 225,000 reports.