It’s always good to have a plan for the future. Many participating organizations in MiHIN’s Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) Use Case (Social Need Screening data) already have a plan and are preparing to convert to Specification v4 by the required deadline, December 20th, 2024. If you participate or plan to participate, and you haven’t yet met with your IT partners, it’s a good time to reach out to them so you’ll be prepared and ready. The October 2023 editions of MiHIN’s Bit’n’Bytes and Download have the full detail.
In brief, version 4 (v4) has a number of advantages over previous versions. It refines fields to simplify and clarify data requirements which will make validation easier and is structured to maximize consistency with the HEDIS Social Needs Screening and CMS’ SDoH Risk Assessment code requirements including:
- Only allowing codified/validated and approved screening tools/ questions (i.e. tools that link to LOINC codes)
- Using additional fields to increase matching capabilities. In addition to first name, last name, DOB, and sex, at least one of the following must also be included: Phone Number; SSN4, or Address.
MiHIN will begin onboarding organizations using this specification in July of 2024. The deadline for converting to the v4 file specification is December 20th, 2024 to avoid interruption to a participating organization’s submissions. Starting January 1, 2025th, no other file specifications will be accepted.
If you have questions, MiHIN’s Cross Sector Data Sharing Program Director, Lisa Nicolaou leads this work and is happy to help.
Michigan Multipayer Initiatives 