Originally posted to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Headlines e-mail list on 8/15/2005
Audiologists and speech-language pathologists who file their claims electronically are reminded that as of October 1, 2005, CMS will no longer process electronic Medicare claims that are non-HIPAA-compliant. Claims that do not meet standards required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) will be returned to the filer for re-submission as compliant claims. CMS reports that only about 0.5 percent of the Medicare fee-for-service claims submitted as of June 2005 were non-compliant.
Practice settings of interest to speech-language pathologists and audiologists had low non-HIPAA compliance. Only 1.45 percent of claims from hospitals and 0.45 percent from physicians were non-compliant. CMS said that, "the high percentage among all provider types and sizes shows that everyone can become compliant." The HIPAA compliant claims allow the same software to be used to generate identical claims for all payers using standard formats and coding. The use of all the HIPAA transactions will allow interoperability among payers and providers for health care administration. CMS continues to make available free/low cost software through Medicare carriers and intermediaries. For further information, please contact Ingrida Lusis, ASHA's Director Health Care Regulatory Advocacy, via e-mail at ilusis@asha.org or 800-498-2071, ext. 4387.
Reprinted by permission of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
