Home Health & Hospice Week

Will UB ready to say good-bye to the UB-92?

The date has been set: The new UB-04 officially will replace your trusty UB-92 on March 1, 2007.

During a two-day meeting held in Baltimore, the National Uniform Billing Committee addressed comments and concerns offered by the public on the implementation of the UB-04.

Establishing an effective date was at the top of the NUBC's agenda because "it would not send the right message to the user community" to leave the timeline up in the air, NUBC chair George Arges tells Eli.

The plan is for payors to be ready for the UB-04 by March 1, 2007, and providers will have a two-month grace period - from March 1 to May 1, 2007 - during which they can use either the UB-04 or the UB-92. That's pending confirmation from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of Management and Budget. See How The Changes Will Affect You Along with the timeframe for implementation, officials from organizations such as the American Health Information Management Association and the American Hospital Association offered comments on the cost of switching to the new form; alignment with the electronic version of the UB-04; how to accommodate more clinical codes; diagnosis present on admission indicators; and alignment with ICD-10.

Hot topic: The diagnosis present on admission indicators garnered the most comments, remarks Sue Bowman, AHIMA's director of coding policy and compliance. CMS should provide reporting and usage instructions on this front earlier rather than later to help initiate training on those particular guidelines, Bowman urges.

Get going: Now that tentative dates are in place, providers should begin to make adjustments, experts suggest. Keep your eyes peeled for any further changes to the form coming down the pike, and begin the transition as early as possible. 

Note: More information on the UB-04 is at www.nubc.org.