The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will stop processing non-HIPAA-compliant electronic Medicare claims Oct. 1.

Such claims that are submitted for payment will be returned to the filer for re-submission as compliant claims, CMS has announced. The agency said the action represents its goal of reaching 100% HIPAA compliance among providers.

As of June 2005, only about 0.5% of Medicare fee-for-service providers submitted non-HIPAA-compliant electronic claims. According to officials, clinical laboratories had the highest rate of non-compliant claims as of May – at 1.72%. Only 1.45% of claims from hospitals and 0.45% from physicians were non-compliant. 

For more on the announcement, see the following site: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/media/press/release.asp?Counter=1528