Fall - Indiana Academy of Family Physicians

HIPAA Update
Act Now To Protect Your Practice!
Most practices are behind in the HIPAA transactions and code sets testing effort. Many vendors, clearing-house and health
plans are also behind. But there are steps you can take right now to prevent disruption of claims payments in October,
says David C. Kibbe, M.D., AAFP’s director of health information technology. Here are four steps to get you started.
• Talk to your practice management system or billing system vendor to determine your practice’s readiness to send HIPAAcompliant
claims to payers, including Medicare, Medicaid and other commercial health plans.
• Reject such vendor statements as "Don’t worry, we’re HIPAA compliant" in response to your queries.
• Request that your vendor immediately engage in end-to-end testing (from your office all the way to the health plan’s computer
system) of these new HIPAA-standard transactions with each payer or health plan.
• Plan now for disruptions in cash flow next fall by anticipating a 10 to 20 percent increase in rejected or delayed claims during the
fourth quarter of 2003. Put aside additional savings and cash reserves, put off new expenditures during this period, and be
prepared to get a commercial loan if necessary.
Article provided by AAFP FP Report.
For more information access the full article at: http://www.aafp.org/fpr/.
Click on "August 2003" and headline or contact the IAFP office at 317-237-4237
to have a copy sent to you.
Report from the AAFP
Spring Legislative Conference Washington D.C.
May 18-20, 2003
by Clif Knight, M.D.
Chair IAFP Commission on Legislative and Governmental Affairs 2002-2003
On behalf of the IAFP, I attended the AAFP Annual Spring Legislative Conference in Washington, DC on May 18-20, 2003.
During the conference I visited the offices of Senators Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh, Representatives Julia Carson, Dan
Burton, and Steve Buyer, all of Indiana, as well as Representative Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, and Representative Heather
Wilson of New Mexico. The importance of actions to improve Medicare reimbursement, repeal Medicare Indirect Medical Education
cuts, continue Title VII Medical Education Grants, increase funding for the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality, strengthen
Medical Liability reform, provide Prescription Medication Coverage for Medicare recipients, reform the Geographic Index, and other
topics were covered with the legislative assistants in these
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