May 2011 Newsletter
MAC Jurisdiction 15 – Ohio Medicare Part B
CMS announced on March 19, 2011, that CIGNA Government Services (CGS) was awarded the Part A/Part B MAC for Jurisdiction 15, which includes the OH Part B workload, with a scheduled transition date of June 18, 2011. The current gateway for OH Medicare B is Palmetto GBA.
On March 28, 2011, CIGNA and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina (SC BlueCross) announced that CGS had been acquired by SC BlueCross. CGS will retain their name, and all current CGS employees, including their current roles and responsibilities, will automatically transfer with this transaction. SC BlueCross also owns Palmetto GBA.
As a result of the sale of CGS to SC BlueCross, changes have been made to the J15 OH Part B EDI Strategy. While CGS will assume support for the OH Part B submitters, they have elected to sub-contract with Palmetto GBA to continue to support the OH Part B EDI workload on the current EDI Gateway, GPNet. There will be no change to our connectivity or transmission of EDI transactions for the J15 A/B MAC. Claims and remittances will continue to be sent and received from the same frontend system Quadax is currently using.
CGS has taken these steps to minimize the impact of the J15 A/B MAC transition on the provider community. However, OH Part B providers who currently bill Palmetto and are enrolled with Palmetto to receive payments electronically must submit a revised CMS-588 EFT Authorization agreement to CGS immediately. Your timely completion of the EFT agreement will ensure continued receipt of electronic Medicare payments following the transition of claims processing and payment operations to CGS. It is imperative that OH Part B providers complete an EFT Authorization agreement and return it to CGS no later than May 13, 2011. A sample copy of the letter and agreement can be found at the A/B MAC Jurisdiction 15 Transition & Implementation Information site.