I am implementing a tool to convert 005010X217 278A3 X12 messages to FHIR bundles.
According to the XSD schema, the 2010FA loop can occur at most 12 times, meaning that its NM1 segment can be present (along with its other segments) multiple times.
According to the implementation guide, this NM1 segment creates an organization or a practitioner. For now, let us say it creates a practitioner.
Within Loop 2010FA, the REF, N3, N4, and PER segments have data that enriches the practitioner created in the NM1 segment.
When Loop 2010FA occurs more than once, the existence of multiple NM1 segments will result in the creation of multiple practitioners. My assumption was that since the segments REF, N3, N4, and PER are in the same 2010FA loop, we should enrich each practitioner created using the aforementioned 4 segments respectively (in order).
But the implementation guide says (let us take the REF01 field of the REF segment, for instance) to assign the REF01 to "Practitioner.identifier[1].type".
My question is, shouldn't this be "Practitioner.identifier [n].type" since there are multiple practitioners to be enriched by REF01 and we cannot always assign the REF01 value of each loop to the same "Practitioner.identifier [1]" element?
Think of a scenario where the X12 message comes with multiple 2010FA loops. When mapping the data of these loops to the FHIR bundle, if we do it according to the implementation guide, we will loop through all the segments and assign the respective values to the same element which is mentioned in the implementation guide. But my thinking is the implementation guide is wrong here, and it should instruct the implementer to assign the respective values to elements which equals to the number of loops.
It is not within X12’s purview to comment on another entity’s policy, procedure, or structure. The information in question is surrounding FHIR mapping, which is owned by HL7 Da Vinci Project and Financial Management work group.