Place of Service Address has to be a Street Address in the New Form 5010

From January 1, 2012, your practice needs to be ready with Version 5010 for electronic claim submission. But although the deadline is fast approaching, there has been lukewarm response in this direction. Even the national 5010 form testing day that CMS organized on June 15 was attended by very few.

Irrespective of the tepid response, you need to be form 5010 ready.

Key: Do not anticipate any delay in the compliance deadline.

You need to start getting in touch with your vendors by pulling all your contracts and assessing how each system and vendor will have a say on its implementation in your practice. While doing so, various people in your practice – physician, biller and coder – should be involved.

Here’s what you and your practices should be doing now:

Work with your software vendors as soon as possible to see to it that no issues will exist with claims submissions using ICD-10.

Check if they are ready for the transition.

Take a look at your forms to ensure they are 5010-form compliant. Now since the place of service address cannot be a PO box as per new 5010 standards, your practice has to ensure that your address is a street address. If you don’t, your claims will be rejected.

Take a look at anything written in the contract that says government mandates are covered. If there’s anything written, find out the cost to your practice – if upgrades are an essential part of your contract, your practice might have saved itself a bundle.

Set up timelines to get your practice’s system ready