CMS has released a fact sheet to help health care providers prepare for the transition to HIPAA 5010 transaction sets, CMIO reports (Byers, CMIO, 3/26).
Background
HIPAA 5010 standards regulate the transmission of certain health care transactions among hospitals, physician practices, health plans and claims clearinghouses. Converting to the HIPAA 5010 standards is seen as key to the larger switch from the ICD-9 clinical coding system to the ICD-10 system.
CMS recently announced that it would delay the enforcement date for the HIPAA 5010 transition until June 30. The latest delay came after CMS pushed back the enforcement date from Jan. 1 to March 31 (iHealthBeat, 3/15).
Recommendations From Fact Sheet
In the fact sheet, CMS recommended that health care providers prepare for the HIPAA 5010 transition by:
- Creating a transition plan;
- Communicating regularly with software vendors and encouraging them to be proactive in avoiding reimbursement problems;
- Establishing a line of credit to cover potential cash flow disruptions;
- Seeking assistance from a claims clearinghouse to ensure the smooth transmission of claims between medical practices and insurers (CMIO, 3/26); and
- Using no-cost software available to Medicare fee-for-service providers from Medicare Administrative Contractors (Terry, FierceHealthIT, 3/23).