Feds urge doctors to file for HIPAA extension: to get it, submit a model compliance plan. (Oct. 15 Deadline).

WASHINGTON -- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is concerned that physicians aren't ready to comply with a mid-October deadline for the electronic transactions portion of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.

A 1-year grace period has been offered, but it is only available to physicians who submit a model compliance plan to CMS by Oct. 15, 2002. The requirement can be met by using a template available at the CMS Web site.

To make its point, CMS officials filed for an extension to the HIPAA compliance date on behalf of the fee-for-service Medicare program.

As an insurance plan, Medicare is a "covered entity" under the HIPAA provisions. The agency filed for an extension to receive more time to ensure that Medicare's electronic transactions are working as they should.

So far, only 3% of covered entities under HIPAA have requested these extensions by filling out their model compliance plans, Ruben J. King-Shaw Jr., CMS's chief operating officer for HIPAA transaction extensions, said at a meeting sponsored by the CMS.

Either 97% of covered entities don't know about HIPAA or aren't taking the act seriously--or they are already HIPAA compliant. The agency doesn't believe that most are already compliant, he said.

CMS officials said that only a Congressional act could change the HIPAA compliance date, and that date is approaching too fast for Congress to change it through legislation.