Washington Beginning April 4, 1999, submitted Medicare claims that are not year-2000 compliant will be returned.

The Health Care Financing Administration instructed contractors to return as unprocessable HCFA-1500 paper claims received after that date that do not contain eight-digit birth dates.

This means entering two digits for months and days, and four digits for years. The new mandate will not require a revision to the HCFA-1500 claim form, but instructions and printing specifications were changed.-K.G.