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HHS
Issues Proposed Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules.
IMPORTANT- CMS Press Release on 2002
Outpatient Update
On December 18, the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a press release announcing a
decision to delay the effective date of the 2002 updates for the
Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS). The effect of this
announcement is that CMS will process claims subject to the OPPS for dates
of service of January 1, 2002, or later using the 2001 OPPS payment rates
while CMS continues to review the rates and codes announced in November of
this year. Claims for such services will be processed timely rather than
holding such claims for three months as announced earlier.
The 12/18 press release is on the CMS Press Office web site, at http://www.cms.gov/media/press/press_release.asp?Counter=324
More HH PPS Questions
Answered
HCFA has posted two new sets of answers to questions received at our HHPPSQUESTIONS@hcfa.gov
mailbox. The files are available at the following website address:
http://www.hcfa.gov/medlearn/refhha.htm
To view the new answer sets, click on the "RTF version" links
next to the files labeled December 2000 - January 2001 Batch 2 and January
2001 Batch 3. The original answer set which was posted in March is now
labeled Batch 1.
We are continuing to work on the backlog of inquiries to
this mailbox and hope to post replies to all inquiries received in
February and March 2001 in coming weeks. Thank you for your
patience.
ERROR
in Home Health PPS Training Material
HHS
Issues Final HIPAA Privacy Regulations - highlights
from Medivations
Avoid
common billing errors on HH PPS RAPs and claims
Q
and A that will be posted on the Health Care Financing Administration's
website
The
Health Care Financing Administration has developed three additional
Questions and Answers regarding observation services in the outpatient
setting.
Continued
use of Version 5.0 of the UB-92 allowed until April 1, 2001
Clarification of
Modifier Usage in Reporting Outpatient Hospital Services
Recently, the Health Care Financing Administration reissued Program
Memorandum A-99-41 regarding "Clarification of Modifier Usage in
Reporting Outpatient Hospital Services." The reissuance made no
changes to the original issuance, except to change the discard date of
the instruction. However, this may include important reminder
information for those reporting outpatient hospital services. The
reissued document is PM A-00-73 and can be found at: www.hcfa.gov/pubforms/transmit/A0073.pdf
