HIPAA noncompliance starts to hurt.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is reminding providers that it certainly pays to submit HIPAA-compliant claims. Effective July 1, Medicare payment for electronic claims that are not HIPAA-compliant will take 13 additional days. Medicare carriers and intermediaries will begin enforcing these rules on July 6 to claims received on or after July 1. Thus, for example, HIPAA-compliant claims received on July 1 can be paid as early as July 15 (under existing waiting period rules), while claims received on July 1 that are not HIPAA-compliant can be paid no earlier than July 28.

In short, the government's patience is wearing a tad thin. Medicare implemented this contingency plan when it discovered that only 33% of electronic claims were HIPAA-compliant as of October 16, 2003, the compliance deadline.

Meanwhile, answering a frequently asked HIPAA-related question, the Center for Medicaid and State Operations/Survey and Certification Group at CMS has issued a letter stating that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not alter the statutory requirements for nursing homes to post survey results or for the government to make survey results available.