The highly anticipated HCFA 1500 deadline has been
extended for filing medical insurance claim forms. Originally
April 1, 2007 was the cutoff for submitting HCFA 1500 (12/90) claim forms
to insurance carriers for medical insurance claims. The new CMS 1500
(8/05) forms were all that were to be accepted after April 1. The CMS now
states then targeted June 1, 2007 as the cutoff date. Most insurance carriers by now
are accepting only the new CMS 1500 forms.
The reason for this extension was due an
error by (you guessed it) the Government. It is reported that they
incorrectly formatted a version of the revised form and the incorrect
format was released to some vendors. This resulted in some forms being
printed with the incorrect format. It is a fairly minor difference, but
the practice management systems would not be able to print the forms
correctly on the incorrect format.
How can you tell if you have forms that were
properly printed? The easiest way is to look at the top of the form. There
is a small red arrow at the top right corner of the form. It should be
approximately ¼” from the top edge of the form. On the improperly printed
forms the arrow is touching or very close to the top edge. You will want
to make sure your forms are printed correctly.
The
new CMS 1500 forms are currently being accepted and processed by insurance
carriers. Forms that are not printed to specification: off line, printing
outside of boxes, etc. will be returned to the provider. This is intended
to inform the provider of the problem so they can correct it.
So far the new forms seem to be
going off without a hitch. Most of us prepared ahead soon
enough to make sure we were able to print and send the new
claim forms with the NPI numbers.
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HCFA 1500
Deadline Extended
