Bulletin: January 23, 2007

WEDI Recommends Establishment of NPI Contingency Plan

By: Marketing Specialist

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) recently asked the Department of Health and Human Services to set a contingency plan for the National Provider Identifier (NPI) rule being implemented on May 23, 2007.

Operating as a healthcare industry advocacy group, WEDI recommends that HHS permit an extended 12-month utilization of Medicare legacy identifiers after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services enable access to the National Plan/Provider Enumeration System database. WEDI states that this plan will avoid interruptions with medical service payments.

The aim of CMS to allow distribution of enumerated NPIs to payers and providers through the NNPES database has not yet been achieved. WEDI claims that this lack of access will affect the industry’s ability to comply with the NPI rule by its May 23rd deadline. According to WEDI, requiring an additional 12 months will allow more time for the payers and providers to finish various tasks necessary to meet compliance, even after they are granted access to the NNPES database.

Quadax has been preparing for the NPI implementation and is currently ready to accommodate them in both HARP and Xpeditor. HARP is accepting and transmitting electronic claims containing NPIs with legacy numbers. Xpeditor is also equipped for the change, capable of electronically accepting and transmitting NPI, although providers must send their NPI to the Xpeditor database before any of this can occur.