Announced at the 2019 Blue Button Developers Conference today, Apple will begin testing an API from CARIN that will allow it to integrate patient health claim data into software like its Health app.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched Blue Button 2.0 last year to offer “44 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries digital access to their historical claims information through an application of their choice.” Now the initiative is expanding through a private company, CARIN, that will offer APIs to health insurers and companies like Apple to offer digital claim data to patients (via Christina Farr).

After many months of work, today the private sector released the CARIN Blue Button® data model and draft implementation guide as part of the White House Blue Button® Developers Conference. The CARIN Blue Button® draft implementation guide includes more than 240 claim data elements that have been agreed on by multiple regional and national health plans. These data elements are included in what we are calling the common payer consumer data set or CPCDS. We have taken these data elements and mapped them to HL7® FHIR® resources to better assist health plans implement the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access proposed rule.

Apple’s Ricky Bloomfield, MD is named as the point-person for Apple as it tests out the latest Blue Button data model before CARIN plans to officially launch its APIs next year.

Other major health insurers and health systems (and states) that will also test out the new data model include Anthem, BlueCross BlueShield, Humana, b.well, North Carolina, Washington, UPMC Health Plan, and more.

This news comes as Apple is continually offering greater health integration with its hardware and software and in particular, would enhance its Health Records features.

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