MNB-97-4 May 1997

National Provider Identifier Schedule Update

In our November issue of The Medicare News Brief, MNB-96-8, we published a proposed schedule for the implementation of National Provider Identifier (NPI). NPI is the initiative by which the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has joined with the State Medicaid and other Federal agencies to develop a National Provider System and assign a unique National Provider Identifier (NPI) to health care providers.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which proposes the NPI as the standard for the industry and for Medicare transactions, originally scheduled for February 1997, has been delayed. For this reason we are delaying the implementation date for Medicare providers beyond the December 1, 1997 date originally planned. We anticipate that it will take at least five months to publish the final regulation after the NPRM is published, and at least another five months to implement the NPI in Medicare operations.

• We will notify our providers of the implementation date as soon as it becomes available. Providers will automatically receive their NPIs at least 120 days prior to Medicare implementation.
• After NPI is implemented by Medicare, we will accept only NPIs on Medicare claims. Because the cost of maintaining multiple provider numbers in our systems would be prohibitive, any claim submitted without an NPI after the Medicare implementation date will be returned to the provider.

Additional information on the National Provider System is available on the HCFA web site at www.hcfa.gov.