GAO reports HCFA woefully noncompliant
If your health plan or organization works with Medicare or Medicaid patients, you must prepare for the probability that HCFA’s systems will fail on Jan. 1, 2000. In a Sept. 28, 1998, report to Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO) in Washing ton, DC, reported on the year 2000 compliance status of the Health Care Financing Adminis tration (HCFA) in Baltimore. Findings included:
• HCFA has not developed an adequate overall schedule or a critical path that identifies and ranks year 2000 tasks and helps ensure they can be completed in a timely manner.
• HCFA has not implemented risk management processes necessary to highlight potential technical and managerial weaknesses that could impair project success.
• HCFA has not planned for or scheduled end-to-end testing to ensure that Medicare wide renovations will work as planned.
The report adds, "Given the magnitude of the task and risks ahead, and the limited time remaining, it is highly unlikely that all of the Medicare systems will be compliant in time to ensure the delivery of uninterrupted benefits and services into the year 2000."
[See: Medicare Computer Systems: Year 2000 Challenges Put Benefits and Services in Jeopardy. Letter Report, 09/28/98, GAO/AIMD-98-284.]
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