ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | Beat the Clock
| Beat the Clock HCFA started in earnest only a year ago to make year 2000 fixes, and for months it has weathered the scorn of year 2000 congressional watchdog Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.). Last month, HCFA officials told Congress that work on mission-critical systems is 70 percent complete.
| Beat the Clock HCFA Renovating these systems has been complicated, HCFA administrator Nancy-Ann The cost of readying the automated processing systems has been high largely because of Such systems are dotted with critical datesbeneficiary eligibility dates, Rigorous to a fault. HCFA had to renovate 49 He cited instances of putting 36,000 test cases through a claims processing system DeParle told Congress she worries now that states, banks and care providers will not Clean claims. To protect its renovated HCFA is going to great lengths to maintain its public services. The agency in January Florence Olsen
started in earnest only a year ago to make year 2000 fixes, and for months it has
weathered the scorn of year 2000 congressional watchdog Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.). Last
month, HCFA officials told Congress that work on mission-critical systems is 70 percent
complete.
DeParle testified. Her agency pays for the health care of more than 70 million Medicare,
Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Program beneficiaries. It processes 1
billion claims annually.
their complexity, said Gary Christoph, director of the Office of Information Services. The
agencys 100-plus systems have 250,000 interfaces to state Medicaid programs, banking
institutions and health providers.
hospital admission and discharge dates, start and stop dates for such things as wheelchair
rentals, and patients managed-care enrollment dates.
million lines of internal and external Cobol code. Its year 2000 testing has been the most
rigorous in the agencys history, Christoph said.
reset for multiple future dates. Even HCFAs smallest claims processing system has 2
million lines of code. Christoph said he is sure HCFA systems have been tested above
and beyond what industry is doing.
have their systems ready in time. The agency is concerned enough to have spent several
million dollars on independent validation contractors to check up on readiness. Recent
General Accounting Office surveys and HCFAs own independent verification efforts
indicate that some states may have systems problems after Jan. 1.
systems, HCFA has notified all claims submittersphysicians, hospitals and other
institutionsthat after April 5 it will not accept any bills submitted without year
2000-ready electronic data interchange formats.
mailed a year 2000 checklist to the nations 1.3 million health care providers to
reiterate what they must do.
folsen@gcn.com