Medicare Reprocessing of 2006 Claims
Georgia Medicare’s Reprocessing of 2006 Physician Claims Based on 4.4% Fee Schedule Update
In February 2006, Georgia’s Part B Medicare Company, Cahaba, began the reprocessing of Georgia physician Medicare claims based on the 4.4 percent Fee Schedule update. Cahaba estimates that it will take them approximately three months to reprocess all of Georgia’s physician claims, easily meeting CMS’s July 1 completion date.
Cahaba states that the process is longer than expected because the CMS Common Working File, to which all claims must be reported, can accept no more than two days of claims processed per week from the carriers in their region. The Georgia carrier is reprocessing the January 1 through mid-February dates of service claims, in two-day increments, weekly, over the next three months.
As of March 20, Cahaba has completed the first week of January claims. For physician offices that want to reprocess their claims in a speedier fashion and slightly improve their Medicare cash flow, they may follow the rules for the reopening of claims by submitting a cover letter of explanation and a copy of their EOBs to the Cahaba Appeals office for reprocessing. The address is:
Georgia Medicare Part B
Appeals Department
PO BOX 3018
Savannah, Georgia 31406-3018