Home Health & Hospice Week

HIPAA will be making yet another change in your billing practices.

But fortunately, home care providers will have four years to get ramped up on the latest HIPAA transaction standard. As part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act transactions rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has selected the "National Provider Identifier" - a single ID number for all providers - as the standard for identifying health care providers on electronic claims and other transactions.

NPI use aims to cut costs and administrative chores by doing away with the multitude of identification numbers currently clogging the system. "The NPI replaces all 'legacy' identifiers that are currently being used," CMS says in a release.

HIPAA-covered entities, which include all providers that bill Medicare and Medicaid, must obtain and use NPIs. But all health care providers, whether they are covered entities under HIPAA, are eligible to be assigned NPIs, CMS explains.

If you're interested in applying, don't get excited just yet. CMS is still developing the National Provider System that will handle the assignment of NPIs and won't be accepting applications until the effective date of the final rule: May 23, 2005. As this deadline approaches, information relating to the application process will be made widely available.

The compliance deadline for most providers and plans will be May 23, 2007. See the final rule in the Jan. 23 Federal Register at www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a040123c.html.