On March 2, 2010, President Obama signed into law the "Temporary Extension Act of 2010." Among other things, this law extends through March 31, 2010, the zero percent update to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule that was in effect for claims with dates of service January 1, 2010, through February 28, 2010. Consequently, effective immediately, claims with dates of service March 1 and later which were being held by Medicare contractors will be released for processing and payment. Please keep in mind that the statutory payment floors still apply and, therefore, clean electronic claims cannot be paid before 14 calendar days after the date they are received by Medicare contractors (29 calendar days for clean paper claims).
In addition, the new law extends through March 31, 2010, the exception process for therapy claims reaching the annual cap, retroactive to January 1, 2010. Affected providers may submit claims for exceptions to the annual therapy caps, with dates of service January 1 through March 31, 2010, using the KX modifier, following the pre-January 1, 2010, requirements for therapy cap exceptions. Please watch your listserv and contractor's website for more information about the new legislation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Note: If you have problems accessing any hyperlink in this message, please copy and paste the URL into your Internet browser. If you received this message as part of the All FFS Providers listserv, you are currently subscribed to one of eighteen Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) provider listservs. If you would like to be removed from all NIH listservs, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/LISTSERV_WEB/signoff.htm <https://list.nih.gov/LISTSERV_WEB/signoff.htm> ) to unsubscribe. If you would like to unsubscribe from a specific provider listserv, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/show_list_archives <https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/show_list_archives> ) to unsubscribe or to leave the appropriate listserv. If you know someone who would like to subscribe to a FFS provider listserv, go to (http://www.cms.hhs.gov/prospmedicarefeesvcpmtgen/downloads/Provider_Lis tservs.pdf) . Please DO NOT respond to this email. This email is a service of CMS and routed through an electronic mail server to communicate Medicare policy and operational changes and/or updates. Responses to this email are not routed to CMS personnel. Inquiries may be sent by going to (http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ContactCMS <http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ContactCMS> ). Thank you.
