HIPAA Blog

[ Monday, November 04, 2002 ]

 

One of my clients provides information management and technological support to state Medicare agencies, and one of the things they have been hearing is that some of the poorer states are dragging their feet in becoming HIPAA compliant. They only have so much money, they bought expensive legacy systems in the past, and they can't afford to throw it all out and start over. Some have said they simply aren't going to switch over, and will just be noncompliant. "Come and get me" is the attitude.

The feds, however, are showing the hammer. Just as the Administrative Simplification Compliance Act (the law that gave the 1-year extension on the transaction and code set requirements) pointed out that non-compliant providers could be removed from the Medicare program, the feds are using the financial threat to make states get compliant:

CMS MAY PULL FUNDS FROM STATES NOT COMPLYING WITH
TRANSACTION RULE

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may withdraw
matching Medicaid improvement funds from a state if it is
not complying with federal transaction and code set rules, a
CMS official said Nov. 1. Speaking at the Fifth National
HIPAA Summit, Richard Friedman, the director of the division
of state systems at CMS, said all 50 states have requested
the one-year delay in compliance with the transaction and
code set rule. They have until Oct. 16, 2003, to alter their
systems to comply with the rule issued under the
administrative simplification title of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act. This should give states
an incentive to become compliant, especially considering the
state budget crises, Friedman said."

Courtesy of BNA.

Jeff [10:38 AM]

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