Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

New, standardized reports will show you why your claim was rejected and how to fix it. You've got a few years to implement the HIPAA 5010 form, but CMS wants to make sure you're completely ready by the time it takes effect on Jan. 1, 2012. The 5010 form, which will make way for the ICD-10 code set, increases the field size for diagnosis codes from five bytes to seven bytes, allowing for ease of use once the ICD-10 transition occurs. But it also includes other changes that you'll need to know about. For instance: Once the 5010 goes into effect, you'll have to get familiar with the potential claims rejection notices. Example: If you receive a 277 claims acknowledgement (CA) rejection, "the billing staff will likely need to produce reports, drawn from the data returned in the 277CA transaction," said Chris Stahlecker, director of Medicare billing procedures, during a [...]