HIPAA Blog

[ Friday, March 29, 2002 ]

 

Missed it by THAT much (as Maxwell Smart used to say). Off by a few hours, HHS published the extension request form Friday morning (or very late Thursday night; there's no time/date stamp on the web site). Jackson Walker was one of the first out of the gate with an e-mail alert on the issue. You can find the main CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, formerly HCFA) page here, the page explaining the extension form here, and the extension form, in PDF format, here. If you want to get Jackson Walker e-mail alerts like the one we sent out for this, e-mail me (see link at left) with your e-mail address and tell me something about yourself (hospital, physician, health plan, consultant, etc.) so I'll know what types of e-alerts you might be interested in.

You can't do it right now, but the form is set up so you can just fill in the blanks and click submit and it will be sent through cyberspace directly to CMS. If you've given ANY thought to HIPAA (and you wouldn't be reading this if you hadn't), it'll take less than 15 minutes to fill this out. It is EASY. If you're operating on a 56K modem, it may take longer for the page to load than it takes for you to fill out the form.

Once you submit electronically, you will get confirmation of receipt from CMS. If you file by mail, or if you use any form other than the one provided (which is allowed), you won't get any confirmation of receipt. You also, apparently, won't ever get any confirmation that CMS has actually approved your form and granted your extension. But, confirmation of receipt is confirmation of acceptance. In other words, the extension is AUTOMATIC if you electronically file the form provided. Even if you file by paper and mail, if your paper plan contains the information requested in the PDF form, "you may consider your extension granted."

Like I said, you can't electronically send in the form yet, but I'll let you know when you can. When you can, you should.

Look at the form now, though, so you'll know what they're looking for. Also, you'll have some idea where you ought to be on HIPAA by now. This is something you should be working on.

Jeff [10:21 AM]

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