Comment on FR Doc # 2012-11775

Question 43: What method or methods would be least burdensome but still appropriate for verifying a treatment relationship? Asking the patient. Specifically if the requesting provider is capable of forwarding a Directed Exchange message from the patient to that provider, then the provider has the relationship. This can be automatically verified cryptographically, and would encourage the use of "first messages" from patients to doctors using Direct once doctors figured out that it was the easiest way to establish a patient-doctor relationship with other nodes on the network.