• Government
• Profession
• Business
• Opinion
• Health

• Health reform
• H1N1
• P4P
• EMRs
• Medicare
• Liability
• AMA House
• » More

• Book Excerpt
• Business Pitch
• Meetings
• » More

• Contract Language
• Ethics Forum
• In the Courts
• Practice Management
• Technically Speaking
• » More

• Bby date
• Regions
• Health plans
• Sections
• News briefs
• Columns
• Editorials
• Letters
• Writers
• Other years

• Search tips
• E-mail alert
• Radio
• RSS
• Mobile
• Subscribe
• Institutions
• Staff directory
• Advertising
• Permissions
• Reprints
• News media
• Site guide
• Useful links
• About
• Premium
• Contact

CMS gives doctors more time to meet latest HIPAA rule

The government's goal is to encourage doctors to continue the shift toward standardized electronic claims.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, amednews staff. Oct. 6, 2003.

• PRINT|
• E-MAIL|
• RESPOND|
• REPRINTS|
• SHARE

Washington -- Federal officials have unveiled their contingency plan to make the Oct. 16 deadline for complying with new electronic health care transaction standards less painful.

Medicare will continue to accept, for an as-yet-undetermined period, noncompliant electronic claims from fee-for-service doctors and others after the deadline, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials said. Less than a month from the deadline, Medicare was receiving 14% of its transactions in a compliant format.

With its announcement, the agency is trying to encourage physicians, especially those in small offices, to keep up their progress toward compliance with the standards. Government officials feared that without some assurances, physicians in small practices would stop filing electronic claims altogether, rather than risk the consequences of failing to comply with the new rules. The standards were mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Experts who have been predicting a claims payment "train wreck" due to a widespread lack of preparedness for the new standard are hoping that other large health care payers will quickly follow Medicare's lead in accepting noncompliant claims, also known as legacy claims.

"The AMA urges private-sector payers to follow the lead of CMS and develop a contingency plan that allows legacy claims while the medical community transitions into full compliance," said AMA Trustee Joseph M. Heyman, MD. Surveys make it clear that doctors have made progress, but won't be ready in time, he added.