Home Forums Discussions Coding and Billing HIPAA 5010

Does everyone have HIPAA-5010 security in place for their electronic billing software? The deadline to be converted was January 1, 2012, however the deadline was pushed back to March 31, 2012.

If you are unsure whether your billing software is HIPAA-5010 compliant, you should check with the software vendor immediately. After 3/31/12 if you are not up to date, this could force you to revert to hand written claims. Don't expect anymore time line extensions, CMS isn't likely to extend the deadline.

For many, an option is to have your clearinghouse upgrade your 4010 files to 5010. For those of you who have opted for a free clearinghouse, you may wish to brace for impact. The free guys tend to be a bit behind from what I have seen so far. But that is only my experience.

JamesNT

I use Medisoft - spent $1,100.00 for upgrade - did myself and it did not work, complained and eventually was told they did not think anybody without an IT department would get upgrade to work and they threw in a $400 support package - they got it to work without errors, but Relay Health (around 100-150 per month) has every claim rejected by Medicare and told us after 3 hours on hold to call Medicare and find out what the problem was. Medicare's phones tell you their circuits are busy and hangs up - I assume for the thousands of other providcers who are having claims denied.

We fiddle with NPI update, for addresses, etc and resent claims - waiting to see if works while I work for free.....hoping to get money in for payroll.

wow steven, sounds incredibly frustrating. I hope the issue resolves.

I use Emedware, and feel extremely fortunate the upgrade was simple. Tech support logged in, ran some checks on our database, installed the upgrade, and was done in 15 min.

The next step will be updating our encounter form to icd-10 next year.

This is when I'm glad I have a billing service.

True Boondoc. Fortunately our return on claims is higher than the average billing service, and it's well worth hiring an in-house biller and dealing with some of these issues myself. But our patients really love calling my biller. someone they call call by name, not some random person at a big company. And she is a person they see in the office, which makes it tougher to avoid the billing notices esp when they are overdue.

I agree with Adam. No one cares more about your money than you and no one will work harder at collecting it than an in-house biller who has you constantly looking over he/her shoulder or the reports you generate. Also, if they are cross-trained for front and back-office duties, they can fill in there when needed. Plus, mine is very handy to have around for other things. Since the first of the year is always slow she used her hours to paint the employees and patients bathroom!!

My biller Gail also doubles as my personal assistant. When I need errands run around town, she is always happy to do these for me. Since she is biller-only and not a front staff person, when she is gone doing errands for me it doesn't impede the office work flow.

Plus I tell my biller, "we don't get paid if you don't get us the money." Like Jerry McGuire, "show me the moneeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy"