HCFA letter to doctors

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The Department of Health & Human Services, which oversees Medicare, has sent a letter to all practicing physicians, which, in brief, states: "We are pleased to tell you that HCFA and its Medicare contractors are fully ready to handle all appropriately formatted claims and other data exchanges on January 1, 2000. All of HCFA's internal systems have been renovated, tested, certified; and necessary changes were implemented by the government-wide Year 2000 deadline of March 31, 1999. Among other things, these internal systems operate HCFA's accounts receivable and payable operations; mangage the eligibility enrollment and premium status of our 39 million Medicare beneficiaries; and make payments to more than 400 managed care plans on behalf of over 6 million beneficiaries. All 75 mission-critical claims processing systems operated by our Medicare contractors are also certified as compliant, including end-t-o-end and future-date testing. We continue to test and retest our renovated systems. We want to be sure that you get paid for the valuable work you do...as physicians, you will need to prepare your internal office systems to communicate with HCFA systems and prepare other aspects of your practice to continue to function reliably after Jan. 2000."

-- Spidey (in@jam.commie), July 02, 1999

Answers

Very interesting since the GAO guy at the 200 day conference said the worst off were HCFA, the FAA, and the DoD, now they are all announcing compliance. So, what is the truth? I would love to think everything is aok and we could go back to our regular programming.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWAyne@aol.com), July 02, 1999.

Since no one has ever asked to see a document which details the total systems and then mission critical systems (as they have rediefined over time and to present) we will never know what they are talking about. They could have hacked together a system which simply writes a check for any charge submission.

The IRS RFP was the ONLY document I've ever seen which detailed the 'systems'. Everything else has been a matter of verbal testimony and press release.

Consider a situation were the government agencies know they are toast and there will be virtually no recrimination for lying. What would your do?

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), July 02, 1999.


Since no one has ever asked to see a document which details the total systems and then mission critical systems (as they have redefined over time and to present) we will never know what they are talking about. They could have hacked together a system which simply writes a check for any charge submission.

The IRS RFP was the ONLY document I've ever seen which detailed the 'systems'. Everything else has been a matter of verbal testimony and press release.

Consider a situation were the government agencies know they are toast and there will be virtually no recrimination for lying. What would your do?

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), July 02, 1999.


At the bottom of my husband's military and civilian government pay statements (we have forced direct deposit) is a statement- "Will I get paid during y2k? Yes we are ready for more questions about how to prepare go to... (happy face web site)

Haven't seen good news about the FMS system- maybe I missed it.

EC

-- EC (JHnck1776@aol.com), July 02, 1999.


At a recent Medicaid provider meeting, we were told the following: IF your system at your agency is compliant and; IF your data contractor is compliant and; IF your bank is compliant and; IF the telephones work and aren't overloaded with static so that data can be transmitted and; IF the banks are compliant...... You'll get paid! BOY! Did that ever give the warm fuzzies to a group that doesn't trust the government to do what they say anyway. This comment was made in a room full of people by the administrator for funding for Medicaid in answer to some rather pointed questions by participants. Now I have two choices. One, I can accept this comment at face value and say that it will work as long as the infrastructure is functioning or; Two, anything that prevents payment transfers will be blamed on the phones, banks or subcontractors. I HAVE to accept No.1 as the answer. If I don't, I'm out of business.

My bank has stated in writing that they are 100% COMPLIANT (not 'ready' but compliant). I have a letter from Data Services of Houston that they are 100% COMPLIANT and have finished all testing and remediation. Phone and power....who the heck knows? Medicaid...they say they are ready but.... Whooo, boy. Gonna be a heck of a ride in January.

Got Advil? Got Valium? Got Bushmills?

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), July 03, 1999.



But - even the pollies are right to a certain extent.

At some point in time, enough will be fixed so all these characters in all these agencies ARE capable of working together.

I'm not sure though, when we will meet that particular goal. I hope, but have seen no credible evidence, that it will be before January 1.

_____

Interesting though - their letter boldly said all these internal changes were actually done "as of" the mandated date of March 31.

When was this form letter advertisment dated? When was this end-to-end testing finished? Were these contractor completely through that early? I thought Rep Horn's committee said they were to finish in September in the contractor offices.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 03, 1999.


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