No Medicare Payments for Last 9 Days of Fiscal Year

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will postpone payments normally due September 22–30, 2006, the last 9 days of the Federal fiscal year. Claims that normally would have been paid then will be paid on October 2, 2006--the first business day of the new fiscal year. This is a provision of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2006. Practices should plan for the impact on claims submission and cash flow.

Contractors should hold all paper and electronic claims which would have been paid during the 9-day period in question. CMS will pay no interest or late penalty for any delay caused by this one-time hold on payments. Contractors should continue to apply CMS regulations for the 14-day electronic claim payment floor and the 29-day paper claim payment floor. Staggered payments are not permitted. No advance payments during the 9-day hold are allowed. CMS will consider accelerated payments using normal procedures. Contractors can make adjustments on a case-by-case basis after October 1 if providers raise extenuating circumstances. An example would be not charging interest on an overpayment for the days for which offsets could not be made due to the hold of payments.

For this one-time notification, CPT Standard Reports are being waived for the month of October.