Re: ebXML multi-hop messaging -- some additional thoughts

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Many thanks to Philippe DeSmedt for his lucid description of the
multi-hop scenarios.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to incorporate
his verbiage as some sort of non-normative text within the TR&P
Messaging Services Specification, at the very least to avoid people
having to speculate what multi-hop is in there for.

I'm at a loss, though, to imagine the "valuable" services that a 'hub'
provides in any of the cases which serve to differentiate it from a
VAN - which is another way of saying that Joe Baran beat me to the
punch.  My attention, though, is drawn especially to Case 3's
description of a "trusted intermediary," where "a trading partner may
trade securely with the hub using the key-pair for that particular
partner-hub combination, and on the next leg, the hub will deliver the
message securely using the keys for the other partner-hub combination."
This sounds suspicious - as if the "hub" may be modifying the (business)
message along the way.

This is done in EDI, as when the primary payer (insurance company)
modifies a claim (ANSI ASC X12 837) for coordination of benefits (COB)
before passing it on to the secondary payer.  In this case, the two
insurance companies are "true" trading partners, thus conflating aspects
of DeSmedt's Cases 2 and 3.  My COB example certainly is not a
"multi-hop" scenario because the provider (e.g., hospital) who initially
sent the claim to the primary payer is expecting an "application"
acknowledgement - an 835 Remittance Advice - from BOTH the primary and
the secondary payers as they adjudicate the claim, seriatim.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
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Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

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