The “payment floor” establishes a waiting period during which time the
contractor may not pay, issue, mail, or otherwise finalize the initial
determination on a clean claim. The “payment floor date” is the earliest day
after receipt of the clean claim that payment may be made.
The payment floor date is determined by counting the number of days since the
day the claim was received, i.e., the count begins the day after the day of
receipt.
There are different waiting periods, and thus different payment floor dates,
for electronic claims and paper claims. The waiting periods are 13 days for
electronic claims and 26 days for paper claims. For the purpose of implementing
the payment floor, the following definitions apply:
An “electronic claim” is a claim submitted via central processing unit (CPU) to
CPU transmission, tape, direct data entry, direct wire, or personal computer
upload or download. A claim that is submitted via digital FAX/OCR, diskette, or
touch-tone telephone is not considered as an electronic claim.
A “paper claim” is submitted and received on paper, including fax print-outs.
This also includes a claim that the contractor receives on paper and then reads
electronically with OCR technology
Also, for the purpose of implementing the payment floor, effective 7/1/04 and
for the duration of the HIPAA contingency plan implementation, an electronic
claim that does not conform to the requirements of the standard implementation
guides adopted for national use under HIPAA, including electronic claims
submitted electronically using pre-HIPAA formats supported by Medicare, is
considered to be a paper claim.
Based on the waiting periods, the payment floor dates are as follows:
Claim Receipt Date
Payment Floor Date
10-01-93 through 6/30/04 14th day for EMC 27th day for
paper claims
07-01-04 and later
14th day for HIPAA-compliant EMC
27th day
for paper and non-HIPAA EMC
01/01/2006 and later 29th day for paper
NOTE: The basis for treating a non-HIPAA-compliant electronic claim as a paper
claim for the purpose of determining the applicable payment floor is as
follows: Effective October 16, 2003, HIPAA requires that claims submitted to
Medicare electronically comply with standard claim implementation guides
adopted for national use under HIPAA. A claim submitted via direct data entry
(DDE), if DDE is supported by the contractor is considered to be a
HIPAA-compliant electronic claim. A contingency plan has been approved to
enable claims to continue to be submitted temporarily after October 15, 2003 in
a pre-HIPAA electronic format supported by Medicare. Effective July 1, 2004,
the Medicare contingency plan is being modified to encourage migration to HIPAA
formats. Effective July 1, 2004, for purposes of the payment floor, only those
claims submitted in a HIPAA-compliant format will be paid as early as the 14th
day after the date of receipt. Claims submitted on paper after July 1, 2004
will not be eligible for payment earlier than the 27th day after the date of
receipt. All claims subject to the 27-day payment floor, including non-HIPAA
electronically submitted claims, are to be reported in the paper claims
category for workload reporting purposes. Effective January 1, 2006, paper
claims will not be eligible for payment earlier than the 29th day after the date
of receipt.
This differentiation in treatment of HIPAA-compliant and non-HIPAA-compliant
electronic claims does not apply to Contractor Performance Evaluation (CPE)
reviews of carriers and FIs conducted by CMS. For CPE purposes, carriers and
FIs must continue to process the CPE specified percentage of clean paper and
clean electronic (HIPAA or non-HIPAA) claims within the statutorily specified
timeframes. Effective for claims received January 1, 2006 and later, clean
paper claims will no longer be included in CPE scoring for claims processing
timeliness.
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ReplyDeleteMedical Billing Outsourcing USA
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