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Medicare

Newsletter

Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 - 9-day Payment Hold

Date: 9/5/2006 

A brief hold will be placed on Medicare payments for all claims during the last 9 days 

of the Federal fiscal year (September 22 through September 30, 2006). These payment

delays are mandated by section 5203 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. No interest

will be accrued and no late penalties will be paid to an entity or individual by reason of

this one-time hold on payments.

All claims held during this time will be paid on October 2, 2006.

This policy only applies to claims subject to payment. It does not apply to full denials,

no-pay claims, and other non-claim payments such as periodic interim payments, home

health requests for anticipated payments, and cost report settlements.

Please note that payments will not be staggered and no advance payments will be

allowed during this 9-day hold.

For more information, please view the MLN Matters Article.

Medicare to Stop Mailing Standard Paper Remittance (SPR) for Those Providers / Suppliers Also Receiving The Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA).

Date: 5/9/2006

Beginning June 1, 2006, if you receive an ERA, the SPR will no longer be sent via mail.

Medicare is offering the MREP software for providers to be able to retrieve, read and print a remittance advice.

Medicare Remit Easy Print (MREP) software.

This is a free software tool available for download through Medicare. It provides the

functionality of being able to download, view or print the 835 (Remittance Advice). The

tool also has a search feature in place to search through the 835 by name, HICN (Medicare member ID number), date, or text.

Utilizing this software providers with the option to print a single Medicare EOB for a

particular patients in cases where the EOB needs to be sent to a secondary insurance

carrier for payment.

For details on the functionalities of this software, please visit WPS.