Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this the first we've heard that a gov't agency would not make the 100 % by 1/1/2000. Ahhh - their starting to use a little harsher language too. Don't read to much into this we of course are all whacko according to the Pyschologists.

"After a poor start on year 2000 work and with much still to be done, the Health Care Financing Administration acknowledges that it is unlikely that all HCFA systems will be ready in time. . . ."

"This may be unlike anything weve ever dealt with before, he said. People know how to manage catastrophic events. but year 2000 problems could be the equivalent of 10 hurricanes at once, he said."

I work at a hospital that is 70 % dependent on Medicare/Medicaid. Anyone looking for a good Samari in the year 2000 - Matt

HCFA is fully focused on year 2000 repairs, HHS IT chief says

http://www.ntgov.com/gcn/gcn/1999/january11/13a.htm

By Christopher J. Dorobek GCN Staff

After a poor start on year 2000 work and with much still to be done, the Health Care Financing Administration acknowledges that it is unlikely that all HCFA systems will be ready in time.

Despite the setbacks, HCFA is making progress, said Neil J. Stillman, deputy assistant secretary for IRM at the Health and Human Services Department.

The late start and the complexity of HCFAs problem has made the task more difficult, he said, but added, I think were optimistic that were going to get most of the way there.

HCFAs implementation plan shows an increasing number of systems will be ready in the coming months, Stillman said at the recent Federation of Government Information Processing Councils Acquisition Management Conference in Falls Church, Va. The agency will roll out the corrected systems in groups.

But Joel Willemssen, director of civil agencies information systems accounting for the General Accounting Offices Information Management Division, questioned the wisdom of multiple simultaneous systems implementations.

The ramp-up we wouldnt necessarily view as a good point, he said.

HCFAs job is tough because it must fix not only its systems but ensure the readiness of systems run by 70 contractors and used by more than 900,000 providers. The Medicare system, which processes nearly 17 million transactions a day and 1 billion claims each year, depends on a range of external systems including those run by state Medicaid programs.

When an agency gets fully focused, its amazing. You can turn battleships around, said John Callahan, HHS chief information officer and the assistant secretary for management and budget.

HCFA and HHS are now clearly focused on 2000 readiness, Callahan said. HCFA has hired a first-rate CIO, Gary G. Christoph, director of HCFAs Office of Information Services, he said.

Drop everything

To work on preparing its systems, HCFA also will postpone implementing some provisions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 [GCN, Aug. 24, 1998, Page 68]. The agency also is pressuring its contractors to make progress on their systems fixes, Callahan said.

A good deal of work has been done, he said.

Congress has helped by providing extra funding, Callahan said. HHS has received funding from the $3.25 billion year 2000 emergency fund created by Congress as part of the fiscal 1999 omnibus appropriations bill.

Another help, he said, has been HHS efforts to build up its systems staff. The department rehired retired federal employees to help fix systems.

This may be unlike anything weve ever dealt with before, he said. People know how to manage catastrophic events. but year 2000 problems could be the equivalent of 10 hurricanes at once, he said.

-- Matt (Butenam1@aol.com), January 19, 1999

Answers

It's starting...

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 19, 1999.

So they haven't implemented provisions required by the 1997 Budget Act either, hmmmm...... 1999 now, that's also late. No substantial progress on contractor intergration between systems either......

Oh s**t.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 19, 1999.

Dang. pshannon just lost a lot of rice on his SoU address wager. Bet Clinton won't mention Y2K now.............................

-- Lisa (lisab@shallc.com), January 19, 1999.

Aw, not just yet, Lisa. Three more hours...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 19, 1999.

Time to speed up some spending timetables....

This might even get some media attention {sigh}

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), January 19, 1999.

"When an agency gets fully focused, its amazing. You can turn battleships around, said John Callahan, HHS chief information officer and the assistant secretary for management and budget.

Just "amazing"! I have this vision of Callahan sitting on a huge pile of marbles in the grand canyon, chanting....."it can be done, it can be done."

HCFA and HHS are now clearly focused on 2000 readiness, Callahan said. HCFA has hired a first-rate CIO, Gary G. Christoph, director of HCFAs Office of Information Services, he said."

Why weren't they clearly focused before? Somebody forget to tell them that they need to produce and process 17 million transactions a day and a billion a year? Geesh!

Mediocrity sucks! Just ask Dagney.

-- Cary Mc from Tx (Caretha@compuserve.com), January 19, 1999.

It amazes me how government officials will say one thing one day, and then think people won't notice a couple weeks later when they say something else. Look at what Medicaire WAS saying in this January 4, 1999 article in the Washington Post...

"Hurdles in Medicaire's Race for Y2K Fix - After a Failed $50 Million Plan, Corrections Appear to Be Nearly Complete"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/04/130l-010499- idx.html"

Last week DeParle said the Y2K push was paying off. The 25 most critical computer systems operated by the HCFA have been renovated, tested and validated by outside experts, she said. Medicaire contractors have finished work on 95 percent of their software code, and DeParle said she expected most contractors to report soon that they have finished a third round of testing to insure that systems will operate smoothly in 2000.

[skipping ahead in the article]

"Still," DeParle said, "I'm increasingly optimistic that we are not only going to meet the March 31 deadline but beat it."

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 19, 1999.

Thanks, Matt and Kevin...

Compare to Rep. Horn and staff declaring more than once that Medicare is going to fail massively. Looks like they weren't going out on a limb but knew something from the outside.

BUT, against the avalanche of Y2K spin from these bozos (including the spinning tops like "Y2K is going to be like 10 hurricanes" Callahan (sheesh, that's so old) and help from Declan/Time, there is no way this is going to rise above the noise-to-signal ratio.

Look, my wife(CNM)'s hospital is 70% dependent too and they are WILFULLY clueless. It's the determination to be clueless that is always underestimated by we GIs. After my wife's hospital goes under next year (and the other GI family practice doc is explicitly planning for it), they are still going to claim it had nothing to do with Y2K. You think I joke, but I'm serious. Watch.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 19, 1999.

But today (on pshannon's new media tidbits) HFCA says they're OK.

At least they say they can process "acceptable" claims.

-- lisa (lisab@shallc.com), January 22, 1999.