Experts ask for contingency on HIPAA electronic transaction deadline

WASHINGTON — An industry watch group has asked Health and Human Services to consider giving physician practices leeway in complying with an electronic transaction rule due to be implemented October 16.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 calls for all medical practices to be using electronic transfer of data by October of this year.

According to the American Medical Association, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange wrote a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expressing concern over the ability of physicians to meet this deadline.

In a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, the group said a substantial number of practices will not be ready for compliance in 5 months.

The group recommends some allowances on behalf of physicians in their transition to the new system.

Other experts fear that physicians are waiting too long to properly test their systems’ compliance. Many practices may have been preoccupied with the privacy deadline which went into effect in April, they said. Last year, many practices waited until the October deadline to file for a 1-year extension; experts fear that could happen again this year on a larger scale, the AMA reported.

AMA sources recommend that practices ensure that their software vendors will also be ready for the deadline. Some smaller practices can still file paper claims, but too many of these could backlog the system in addition to the electronic submissions, they said.

HHS has not responded to the watch group’s letter.