Y2K compliance deadline causes concern
AHA troubled by HCFA’s lack of communication
The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) in Baltimore expects providers to have their Medicare claims compliant for the year 2000 (Y2K) by Jan. 1, 1999, according to agency briefings.
Representatives for the Chicago-based American Hospital Association (AHA) heard the news at a recent HCFA technical advisory meeting. Medicare fiscal intermediaries (FIs) were expected to take until the end of September to advise providers of the new electronic billing specifications. Testing for Y2K compliance was set to begin Oct. 1.
HCFA will advise carriers, however, that non-Y2K compliant claims submitted by providers should not be rejected, though HCFA may alter this policy in the future, according to a HCFA briefing attended by the government affairs staff of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) in Englewood, CO.
The problem is that a number of hospitals haven’t yet heard from their Medicare FIs and may not know that they face a January 1, 1999, Y2K compliance deadline for Medicare claims, says Rick Pollack, executive vice president of government and public affairs for the AHA.
In an Aug. 21 letter to HCFA administrator Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, Pollack says, "While the AHA applauds your efforts to focus attention on the complexities of the Y2K issue, we are troubled by the lack of direct communication with the provider community."
Providers have not received formal notification from HCFA about the impending deadline for compliance, Pollack says.
Feedback from the letter is still expected, explains Dionne Dougall, assistant director of media relations for the AHA. The association has not yet advised its member organizations to take action about the compliance deadline. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt for hospitals to contact their FIs if they don’t hear from them first, she says.
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