Home Health & Hospice Week

Regulations:

Keep Working On HIPAA, Official Reminds ODF Callers

Published on Thu Jan 22, 2004

In addition to industry-specific points, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services touched on these general provider points in the Jan. 14 Open Door Forum for home care providers:

HIPAA. CMS' HIPAA contingency plan, which allows providers who have requested an exception to forego submitting HIPAA-compliant claims, will not last forever, a CMS official reminded the forum's approximately 470 callers and attendees.

Because CMS plans to end the contingency plan as soon as possible, providers, software vendors and billing companies should submit HIPAA-compliant claims ASAP. As of Jan. 2, only 58 percent of electronic claims submitted to Medicare were formatted correctly, the staffer said.

Dual eligibles. Beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid continue to cause headaches all around, and CMS hopes to get to the bottom of some of the problems. Providers who have trouble with dual eligibles can report their circumstances to a new mailbox set up by the CMS task force investigating such problems: dualeligibles@cms.hhs.gov.

Senders should receive answers to questions or information on how their submissions will be used, a CMS official noted in the forum. CMS may post frequently asked questions if trends emerge.