A Python toolkit for parsing and converting healthcare EDI 837 (Professional Claims) files to JSON format.
EDI Reader simplifies working with complex EDI X12 837 healthcare claims files by converting them into easily readable JSON structures. Built for healthcare developers, data engineers, and QA teams who need to parse, validate, or analyze EDI claim data.
Current Status: Early development (~30% complete) - Basic ISA/GS/ST segment parsing is functional.
Environment setup is managed by Poetry:
# Install Poetry
curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -
# Install dependencies
poetry installfrom edi_parser import EDI
# Parse an EDI file
with open('claim.edi', 'r') as f:
data = f.read()
edi = EDI(data)
edi.isa_parser()
edi.gs_parser()
# ... more parsing
# Output to JSON
with open('output.json', 'w') as out:
json.dump(edi.data, out, indent=2)- ✅ ISA Segment Parsing - Interchange control headers
- ✅ GS/GE Segment Parsing - Functional group headers/trailers
- ✅ ST/SE Segment Parsing - Transaction set headers/trailers
- 🚧 BHT, NM1, N3, N4 - In development
- 📋 Full 837 Support - Planned for Phase 1
For detailed information, see our comprehensive documentation:
- Quick Start Guide - Get up and running in 10 minutes
- Executive Summary - High-level project overview, SWOT analysis, and recommendations
- Project Analysis - Complete technical analysis, use cases, and development roadmap
- Comprehensive README - Full documentation with API details and examples
- Healthcare IT Development - Debug and validate EDI claim processing
- Data Engineering - Build ETL pipelines for claims analytics
- QA & Testing - Automated testing of EDI generation systems
- Compliance Auditing - Parse and analyze claims for regulatory compliance
- Education - Learn EDI X12 837 format structure
This project works seamlessly with clinical-data-generator to enable round-trip testing:
- clinical-data-generator creates EDI 837 files
- edi_reader parses them back to JSON
- Together they provide complete test coverage and validation
- Complete all EDI 837 segment parsers
- Comprehensive test suite
- Basic CLI interface
- Multiple format support (835, 270/271)
- Validation engine
- REST API
- Web UI
- Batch processing
- Performance optimization
See PROJECT_ANALYSIS.md for the complete roadmap.
Contributions are welcome! This project is in early development and needs help with:
- Implementing segment parsers
- Writing tests
- Documentation improvements
- Use case examples
Please read our Contributing Guidelines for details on our code of conduct, development process, and how to submit pull requests.
By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the MIT License.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
If you use this project in your work, please include the following attribution:
EDI Reader - https://github.com/bodharma/edi_reader
Copyright (c) 2026 bodharma
When using this library in documentation or derivative works, a link back to this repository is appreciated.