The Center for Medicare and Medicai...

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has stationed an article about the modern developments affecting the implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The article, "Medicare Providers: Their Vendors, Clearinghouses, or Other Third Party Billers, and the HIPAA/Medicare Contingency Plan," reminds Medicare providers that the February 27 2004 modification of the contingency plan gave a grace period to providers who were not ready to submit HIPAA-compliant claims. According to the modification, Medicare will continue to accept claims electronically in a pre-HIPAA format after July 1 still these claims will not be paid until at least 27 days after receipt. Payment turnaround is normally 14 days. The article includes a checklist of questions for providers to use. It is available online at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medlearn/matters/mmarticles/2004/SE0414.pdf. More HIPAA information is available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/hipaa.

COPYRIGHT 2004 American Academy of Family Physicians

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group