CMS announces National Provider Identifier contingency plan

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

CMS announces National Provider Identifier contingency plan 

Source: AHA News Now (http://www.ahanews.com)
Date: April 3, 2007 


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday issued a notice describing its
contingency plan for health care providers, health plans and others that must implement a
National Provider Identifier under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act. According to the CMS plan, covered entities that acted in “good faith” to become NPI
compliant can continue to accept legacy numbers through May 23, 2008, one year after the
NPI rule takes effect. AHA encouraged the 12-month extension in comments submitted to CMS
in January. The notice protects covered entities from enforcement action so long as they
continue to pursue “good faith efforts” to meet the NPI requirements, and indicates the
Department of Health and Human Services will investigate only when a complaint is filed,
as it has for other HIPAA standards. The notice does not indicate when CMS will issue
long-awaited instructions for accessing the NPI database, but says the instructions await
clearance from the Office of Management and Budget. CMS expects to issue a separate
contingency plan for Medicare.



Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/


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