August 23 , 2006
Government Affairs
E-Update
Table
of Contents
Complete Your Ambulance Cost Study Survey
Motions from AAA Board Call on National Ambulance Contracts
Reminder: Nine-Day Medicare Payment Hold in September
Nine Months Remaining Until NPI Compliance Date
Forwarded from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
IOM Hosts Future of Emergency Care Report Workshop in Salt Lake City
August Nexus Newsletter Attached
Complete Your Ambulance Cost Study Survey
If you have received a letter from Quantria Strategies asking you to complete a cost study, please submit a completed survey today. For those of you who are part of the random sample, you should also be receiving a phone call from a member of the AAA Board of Directors or AAA Reimbursement Task Force to make sure you received your survey letter. It is critical that Quantria Strategies receive as many completed surveys from its random sample as possible.
Quantria Strategies has sent letters to 1,000 ambulance service providers asking that they participate in an ambulance cost study. The providers were randomly selected and represent a cross section of all provider types, service area populations and regions of the country. The AAA hired Quantria Strategies to conduct the study so that the ambulance industry will have a basis by which to compare the results of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on the costs of ambulance services now expected to be released this fall.
If you receive a letter, please follow the instructions and participate in the survey. It is critical that we have a large response rate. If you receive a letter and have any questions, please contact John O'Hare of Quantria Strategies at jfo@quantria.com or Judy Xanthopoulos at jax@quantria.com .
Motions from AAA Board Call on National Ambulance Contracts
On Monday, August 21, 2006, the AAA Board of Directors met by conference call and took actions and made motions as follows:
Follow Up to Short Term Bridge Award and National RFP
GSA/HHS/FEMA/DHS distributed a press release indicating the awardees for the Short Term Bridge Contract related to New Orleans , Louisiana and a number of surrounding parishes. The two awardees are AMR and Acadian.
Action
A Member Advisory is to be distributed today informing the membership of the contract awards.
Motion
A motion was made, seconded and approved to allow the GSA/FEMA workgroup to continue its work as it relates to creating opportunities for AAA membership to participate in providing surge capacity for the Short term bridge package, to continue its works as it relates to organizing opportunities in preparation of the release of a national RFP, to close the original budget by capping it at the expenses already incurred and authorizing up to an additional $20,000 in the research and development of the above opportunities.
Reminder: Nine-Day Medicare Payment Hold in September
A temporary hold will be placed on Medicare payments for all claims (including ambulance) during the last 9 days of the Federal fiscal year (September 22 through September 30, 2006). These payment delays are mandated by section 5203 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. No interest will be accrued and no late penalties will be paid to a supplier or provider by reason of this one-time hold on payments. All claims held during this time will be paid on October 2, 2006.
This policy only applies to claims subject to payment. It does not apply to full denials, no-pay claims, and other non-claim payments such as periodic interim payments, home health requests for anticipated payments, and cost report settlements.
Please note that payments will not be staggered and no advance payments will be allowed during this 9-day hold. For more information, please view the MLN Matters Article at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/MM5047.pdf.
Nine Months Remaining Until NPI Compliance Date
Forwarded from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
NPI: Get It. Share It. Use It.
August 23rd marks 9 months remaining until the National Provider Identifier (NPI) compliance date. Over 1 million NPIs have been issued so far --- do you have your NPI yet? At this 9-month mark, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would like to announce the following:
CMS NPI Roundtable - September 26, 2006
CMS will host a national NPI Roundtable, open to all health care professionals, on Tuesday, September 26th from 2:00-3:30PM ET.
1. To participate, you may call 1-877-203-0044, pass code 4795739
2. CMS will address common questions related to Medicare's guidance on Subparts. While CMS will only address questions from a Medicare perspective, this information may be helpful to all providers. Medicare providers, who have questions, should select the appropriate email below and send in questions by Friday, September 8th. Questions received after this date will not be considered.
Medicare providers who bill a Fiscal Intermediary should send questions to: NPIQuestionsfromFIBillers@cms.hhs.gov
Medicare providers who bill a Carrier should send questions to: NPIQuestionsfromCarrierBillers@cms.hhs.gov
Think You Don't Need an NPI? Think Again.
* Even those providers who do not bill for services may need to disclose their NPIs to those providers who do (e.g., physicians who order lab tests or refer patients for diagnostic testing must be identified on the lab's or testing facility's claims).
* Even if you plan to retire in April, but know that some of your claims will not be submitted until after the May 23rd compliance date, you still need an NPI. Without the NPI, those claims may be adversely affected, with payment delayed or possibly even denied.
Reminder to Supply Legacy Identifiers on NPI Application
* CMS continues to urge providers to include legacy identifiers on their NPI applications. This will help all health plans, including Medicare, to get ready for May 23, 2007. If reporting a Medicaid legacy number, include the associated State name. If providers have already been assigned NPIs, CMS asks them to consider going back into the NPPES and updating their information with their legacy identifiers if they did not include those identifiers when they applied for NPIs. This information is critical for health plans and health care clearinghouses in the development of crosswalks to aid in the transition to the NPI.
New NPI Slogans and Partnership with WEDI
* Recently, CMS and the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) agreed to common NPI slogans for use in outreach campaigns. These slogans appear at the beginning and end of this listserv message, and will continue to appear on our messages and products. A recent WEDI press release, found at http://www.wedi.org/npioi/public/articles/dis_viewArticle.cfm?ID=537 , discusses the slogans and partnership in more detail.
Special Information for Medicare Providers - Designation of Subparts
CMS reminds Medicare providers to visit Medicare's Subparts Expectation Paper (located at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalProvIdentStand/Downloads/Medsubparts01252006.pdf on the CMS NPI web page) for more suggestions on how to determine their subparts. Remember, no health plan, not even Medicare, can instruct a provider on how to enumerate subparts. This is a business decision that the organization provider must make considering its unique business operations.
Medicare Provider Enrollment and NPIs
CMS requires that providers and suppliers obtain their NPIs prior to enrolling in Medicare or updating their Medicare enrollment information. Providers and suppliers must enter their NPIs on the CMS-855 Medicare provider enrollment applications and submit a copy of their NPI notifications with each CMS-855 application that they submit.
Required Use of NPI on Medicare Paper Claim Forms
Medicare will require the NPI on its paper claim forms. To learn more visit a recent MLN Matters article on this topic at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/mm4023.pdf on the CMS website.
Use of NPI on Medicare Claims on October 1 st
Beginning October 1st, Medicare can accept claims that only have an NPI on them, however, to facilitate further testing, Medicare strongly encourages its providers to submit both legacy identifiers and their NPI on claims.
As always, more information and education on the NPI can be found at the CMS NPI page http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/npi/01_overview.asp on the CMS website. Providers can apply for an NPI online at https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov/NPPES/Welcome.do or can call the NPI enumerator to request a paper application at 1-800-465-3203.
Getting an NPI is free - not having one can be costly.
IOM Hosts Future of Emergency Care Report Workshop in Salt Lake City
Dear Interested Organizations and Members of the Public:
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) will be holding its first Future of Emergency Care Series dissemination workshop in Salt Lake City on Thursday, September 7th. Registration is now open!
The workshop will be held at Primary Children's Medical Center from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and is free of charge to the public. Further details and a link for online registration can be found at our web site at www.iom.edu/emergencycare/workshops . An informational flyer is attached here - please feel free to pass this on to your colleagues.
We thank you for your continued interest and support and look forward to seeing you in Salt Lake City! Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
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