HIPAA Claims
Published on Tue Apr 06, 2004
If you're still not submitting electronic claims in compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, then you'll likely be waiting quite a bit longer to get paid.
That's the bottom line from a Feb. 27 program transmittal (change request 2981), which states the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will tweak its HIPAA contingency plan to push providers to get in line "as soon as possible."
Effective July 1 -- with an implementation date of July 6 -- all claims received in pre-HIPAA format will be waiting at least 27 days for reimbursement, while those claims in compliance will be eligible for payment in half that time.
Lesson learned: Providers who can't afford lengthy delays on reimbursement need to step up their HIPAA compliance efforts.
