The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced that beginning July 1 it will slow processing of non-compliant claims — paying them no earlier than 27 days after receipt — to encourage use of the standardized transactions and code sets (TCS) format. Compliant claims could be paid as early as 14 days after receipt. Shortly before the original TCS-compliance deadline, which was scheduled Oct. 16 last year, CMS enacted a contingency plan allowing providers to submit non-compliant claims as long as they demonstrated a “good faith effort” toward compliance. Last month, CMS announced that 69 percent of electronic Medicare claims from all health care providers are now in the TCS format. In February, however, 82 percent of HME providers who responded to a HomeCare Web poll reported they are now filing HIPAA TCS-compliant claims.

For breaking news, go to www.homecaremonday.com, the electronic news service of the home medical equipment industry.