If the elevators work, you should get paid
HCFA two years into millennium planning
The elevators at the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) in Baltimore should be working well on Jan. 1, 2000. You probably don’t really care about that, but you and the rest of the country certainly should hope they do.
Mike Odachowski, deputy director of HCFA’s bureau of data management and strategy, uses the example of fully functioning elevators as an indication of the lengths his agency is taking to ensure a smooth computer transition from 1999 to the year 2000. It’s a lesson in detail from which health information managers can learn.
Modern elevators, you see, can be run with computer codes codes that can contain time and date elements. Could those elements become seriously confused if they aren’t programmed to recognize the difference between 1999 and the year 2000?
HCFA is investigating this, says Odachowski. Thus, if the HCFA elevators are operating properly, that means there’s a good chance that the agency’s 15 million lines of internal computer codes contained in the largest health care data bank in the world will be ready for the millennium change. It also means your hospital stands a better chance of uninterrupted Medicare reimbursements.
HCFA has been working on its millennium changeover for two years, and Odachowski suggests hospitals that haven’t started developing their own plans better hurry.
"The time to address the millennium situation is now, whether you believe you need to or not," he says. "When those people who believe it isn’t a big deal wake up and realize it is, they’re all going to be going after the same resources. The availability of those resources will diminish as we get closer to the year 2000."
The next four years will be a turbulent period for information managers. Odachowski notes that besides the millennium situation, Medicare reimbursement will change dramatically in mid-1998 when the Medicare Transaction System an electronic claims system kicks in. Also, health reform legislation approved by Congress last year requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish again by mid-1998 national standards for code sets, identifiers, and electronic transactions.
These standards actually will have more impact on the HIM field than the Medicare Transaction System, Odachowski says. But above all, he advises information managers to treat the issues separately. "The experts are saying, Don’t try to accomplish too much at one time,’" he says. "They recommend that you deal with the millennium as a separate issue."
HCFA plans to have all of its computer upgrades completed by the end of 1998, says Barbara Goodman, project leader for the agency’s millennium team. That will leave a year to test the changes. During this year, Goodman will begin working to coordinate the switchover with a HCFA task force comprising Medicare peer review organizations and state Medicaid agencies.
Odachowski’s philosophy about HCFA succeeding in the changes it’s making could be copied by health information managers: "If our systems fail, it’s a pretty severe hit to the economy. We certainly can’t take this lightly."
Here is the contact information for people mentioned in these stories.
Michael G. Eckstein, president and CEO, PSIMED Corp., 1221 E. Dyer Road, Suite 260, Santa Ana, CA 92705. Telephone: (714) 979-7653.
Bob Dimmitt, medical applications consultant, Networked Medical Systems, 11 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1604, Houston, TX 77046. Telephone: (713) 960-0070.
Cheryl Berthelsen, associate professor of health information management, University of Mississippi, Jackson, MS. Telephone: (601) 984-6315. E-mail: [email protected].
Peter de Jager, consultant, 22 Marchbank Crescent, Brampton, Ontario, Canada, L6S3B1. Telephone: (905) 792-8706. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: http/www.year2000.com. De Jager has a 50-minute videotape called "Year 2000: Are You Ready," and a 60-minute audiotape called "Systems for the Year 2000: The Upcoming Date Crisis."
Other resources include:
• Background on the year 2000 situation is available on a web site maintained by year 2000 consultants. The address is: http:/www.year2000.com. The site includes a list of more than 90 companies working on millennium problems, products to build awareness of the situation, user groups to exchange information, job listings, and links to other related web sites.
• The IBM Corp. has a web site on which they list their various systems and how compliant those are for handling the year 2000. The address is: http/www.software.ibm.com.
• The Coopers & Lybrand consulting company has a brochure called "Diagnostic 2000: Are Your Systems Prepared for the Year 2000?" It is available by calling the company’s publication department: (212) 536-3257.
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