SECTION 421.1. Definitions

The following words and terms, when used in this subchapter, shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

(1) Accurate and Consistent data--Data that has been edited by DSHS and subjected to provider validation and certification.

(2) ANSI 837 Institutional Guide--American National Standards Institute, Accredited Standards Committee X12N, 837 Health Care Institutional Claim Implementation Guide.

(3) Attending Physician--The individual licensed under the Medical Practice Act (Occupations Code, Chapter 151) who would normally be expected to certify and recertify the medical necessity of the services rendered or the licensed health professional primarily responsible for the care of the patient during the hospital episode. For Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) services, the attending physician is the individual who certifies the SNF plan of care.

(4) Certification Process--The process by which a provider confirms the accuracy and completeness of the encounter data set required to produce the public use data file as specified in §421.7 of this title (relating to Certification of Discharge Reports).

(5) Charge--The amount billed by a provider for specific procedures or services provided to a patient before any adjustment for contractual allowances, government mandated fee schedules or write-offs for charity care, bad debt or administrative courtesy. The term does not include co-payments charged to health maintenance organization enrollees by providers paid by capitation or salary in a health maintenance organization.

(6) Comments--The notes or explanations submitted by the hospitals, physicians or other health professionals concerning the provider quality reports or the encounter data for public use as described in the Texas Health and Safety Code, §108.010(c) and (e) and §108.011(g) respectively.

(7) Data format--The sequence or location of data elements in an electronic record according to prescribed specifications.

(8) DSHS--Department of State Health Services.

(9) Discharge--The formal release of a patient by a hospital; that is, the termination of a period of hospitalization by death or by disposition to a residence or another health care provider.

(10) Discharge claim--A set of computer records as specified in §421.9 of this title (relating to Discharge Reports--Records, Data Fields and Codes) relating to a specific patient. "Discharge claim" corresponds to the ANSI 837 Institutional Guide term, "Transaction set."

(11) Discharge report--A computer file as defined in §421.9 of this title periodically submitted on or on behalf of a Hospital in compliance with the provisions of this chapter. "Discharge report" corresponds to the ANSI 837 Institutional Guide terms, "Communication Envelope" or "Interchange Envelope."

(12) DRG--Diagnosis Related Group.

(13) EDI--Electronic Data Interchange--A method of sending data electronically from one computer to another. EDI helps providers and payers maintain a flow of vital information by enabling the transmission of claims and managed care transactions.

(14) Edit--An electronic standardized process developed and implemented by DSHS to identify potential errors and mistakes in data elements by reviewing data fields for the presence or absence of data and the accuracy and appropriateness of data.

(15) Electronic filing--The submission of computer records in machine readable form by modem transfer from one computer to another (EDI) or by recording the records on a nine track magnetic tape, computer diskette or other portable data storage media acceptable to the executive director.

(16) Error--Data submitted on a discharge report which are not consistent with the format and data standards contained in this section or with editing criteria established by the executive director, or the failure to submit required data.

(17) Ethnicity--The status of patients relative to Hispanic background. Hospitals shall report this data element according to the following ethnic types: Hispanic or Non-Hispanic.

(18) Facility Type Indicators--An indicator that provides information to the data user as to the type of facility or the primary health services delivered at that facility (e.g., Teaching, Acute Care, Rehabilitation, Psychiatric, Pediatric, Cancer, Skilled Nursing, Long Term Acute Care or other Long Term Care Facility). A facility may have more than one indicator. Hospitals may request updates to this field.

(19) Geographic identifiers--A set of codes indicating the public health region and county in which the patient resides.

(20) HCPCS--HCFA's Common Procedure Coding System (HCFA - Health Care Finance Administrations (Now called Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)).

(21) Health care facility--A hospital, an ambulatory surgery center licensed under Chapter 243 of the Health and Safety Code, a chemical dependency treatment facility licensed under Chapter 464 of the Health and Safety Code, a renal dialysis center, a birthing center, a rural health clinic or a federally qualified health center as defined by 42 United States Code, §1396(1)(2)(B).

(22) HIPPS--Health Insurance Prospective Payment System.

(23) Hospital--A public, for-profit, or nonprofit institution licensed or owned by this state that is a general or special hospital, private mental hospital, chronic disease hospital or other type of hospital.

(24) ICD--International Classification of Disease.

(25) Inpatient--A patient, including a newborn infant, who is formally admitted to the inpatient service of a hospital and who is subsequently discharged, regardless of status or disposition. Inpatients include patients admitted to medical/surgical, intensive care, nursery, subacute, skilled nursing, long-term, psychiatric, substance abuse, physical rehabilitation and all other types of hospital units.

(26) Institutional Review Board--DSHS' appointees or agent who have experience and expertise in ethics, patient confidentiality, and health care data who review and approve or disapprove requests for data or information other than the public use data as described in §421.46 of this title (relating to Institutional Review Board).

(27) Operating or Other Physician--The "physician" licensed by the Texas Medical Board, or "other health professional" licensed by the State of Texas who performed the principal procedure or performed the surgical procedure most closely related to the principal diagnosis.

(28) Other exempted provider--A hospital exempt from state franchise, sales, ad valorem, or other state and local taxes that does not seek or receive reimbursement for providing health care services to patients from any source, including the patient or any person legally obligated to support the patient; a third party payer; or Medicaid, Medicare, or any other federal, state or local program for indigent health care.

(29) Other health professional--A person licensed to provide health care services other than a physician. An individual other than a physician who admits patients to hospitals or who provides diagnostic or therapeutic procedures to inpatients. The term encompasses persons licensed under various Texas practice statutes, such as psychologists, chiropractors, dentists, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and podiatrists who are authorized by the hospital to admit or treat patients.

(30) Patient account number--A number assigned to each patient by the hospital, which appears on each computer record in a patient discharge claim. This number is not consistent for a given patient from one hospital to the next, or from one admission to the next in the same hospital. DSHS deletes or encrypts this number to protect patient confidentiality prior to release of data.

(31) Physician--An individual licensed under the laws of this state to practice medicine under the Medical Practice Act, Occupations Code, Chapter 151.

(32) Present on admission (POA)--Diagnosis present on admission.

(33) Provider--A physician or health care facility.

(34) Provider quality data--A report or reports authored by DSHS on provider quality or outcomes of care, as defined in Health and Safety Code, Chapter 108, created from data collected by DSHS or obtained from other sources.

(35) Public use data file--A data file composed of discharge claims with risk and severity adjustment scores which have been altered by the deletion, encryption or other modification of data fields to protect patient and physician confidentiality and to satisfy other restrictions on the release of hospital discharge data imposed by statute.

(36) Race--A division of patients according to traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize them as distinctly human types. Hospitals shall report this data element according to the following racial types: American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black; White; or Other.

(37) Required minimum data set--The list of data elements which hospitals are required to submit in a discharge claim for each inpatient stay in the hospital. The required minimum data set is specified in §421.9(d) of this title. This list does not include the data elements that are required by the ANSI 837 Institutional Guide to submit an acceptable discharge report. For example: Interchange Control Headers and Trailers, Functional Group Headers and Trailers, Transaction Set Headers and Trailers and Qualifying Codes (which identify which qualify as subsequent data elements).

(38) Research data file--A customized data file, which includes the data elements in the public use file and may include data elements other than the required minimum data set submitted to DSHS, except those data elements that could reasonably identify a patient or physician. The data elements may be released to a requestor when the requirements specified in §421.8 of this title (relating to Hospital Discharge Data Creation) are completed.

(39) Risk adjustment--A statistical method to account for a patient's severity of illness at the time of admission and the likelihood of development of a disease or outcome, prior to any medical intervention.

(40) Service Unit Indicator--An indicator derived from submitted data (based on Bill type or Revenue Codes) and represents the type of service unit or units (e.g., Coronary Care Unit, Detoxification Unit, Intensive Care Unit, Hospice Unit, Nursery, Obstetric Unit, Oncology Unit, Pediatric Unit, Psychiatric Unit, Rehabilitation Unit, Sub acute Care Unit or Skilled Nursing Unit) where the patient received treatment.

(41) Severity adjustment--A method to stratify patient groups by degrees of illness and mortality.

(42) Submission--The transfer of a set of computer records as specified in §421.9 of this title that constitutes the discharge report for one or more hospitals.

(43) Submitter--The person or organization, which physically prepares discharge reports for one or more hospitals and submits them to DSHS. A submitter may be a hospital or an agent designated by a hospital or its owner.

(44) THCIC Identification Number--A string of six characters assigned by DSHS to identify health care facilities for reporting and tracking purposes.

(45) Uniform facility identifier--A unique number assigned by DSHS to each health care facility licensed in the state. For hospitals, this will include the hospital's state license number. For hospitals operating multiple facilities under one license number and duplicating services, DSHS will assign a distinguishable uniform facility identifier for each separate facility. The relationship between facility identifier and the name and license number of the facility is public information.

(46) Uniform patient identifier--A unique identifier assigned by DSHS to an individual patient and composed of numeric, alpha, or alphanumeric characters, which remains constant across hospitals and inpatient admissions. The relationship of the identifier to the patient-specific data elements used to assign it is confidential.

(47) Uniform physician identifier--A unique identifier assigned by DSHS to a physician or other health professional who is reported as attending or treating a hospital inpatient and which remains constant across hospitals. The relationship of the identifier to the physician-specific data elements used to assign it is confidential. The uniform physician identifier shall consist of alphanumeric characters.

(48) Validation--The process by which a provider verifies the accuracy and completeness of data and corrects any errors identified before certification.

Source Note: The provisions of this §421.1 adopted to be effective August 19, 1997, 22 TexReg 7490; amended to be effective December 29, 1997, 22 TexReg 12494; amended to be effective December 24, 2000, 25 TexReg 12430; amended to be effective July 29, 2001, 26 TexReg 5408; amended to be effective April 21, 2002, 27 TexReg 3183; amended to be effective July 6, 2003, 28 TexReg 4915; transferred effective September 1, 2004, as published in the Texas Register September 10, 2004, 29 TexReg 8842; amended to be effective December 27, 2007, 32 TexReg 9683; amended to be effective January 9, 2011, 35 TexReg 9743; amended to be effective December 18,2014,39TexReg 7582; amended to be effective July 5, 2017, 42 TexReg 3373; amended to be effective January 30, 2019, 44 TexReg 429