The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) yesterday told carriers to stop accepting the old CMS-1500 forms on July 2.

As reported earlier this year in CMA Alert, CMS announced it would continue accepting the old CMS-1500 claim forms past the original April 1 deadline because of formatting errors in some of the new forms being distributed by the Government Printing Office and other vendors. The form was  updated to accommodate the mandated National Provider Identifiers (NPIs).

According to CMS, the problem is not as widespread as previously suspected. Still, physicians should make sure that they have the new and correctly formatted forms before the July 2 implementation date.

The best way to identify badly formatted forms is to look at the upper right-hand corner of the form. If the tip of the red arrow above the vertically stacked word “CARRIER” is touching or close to touching the top edge of the form, then the form is not printed to specifications. There should be approximately a quarter of an inch between the tip of the arrow and the top edge of the paper on properly formatted forms.

Please note that this issue involves the paper claim form only and does not affect the NPI implementation date. Medicare carriers can continue accepting legacy provider identification numbers until May 31, 2008.

To find out if your forms are formatted properly, click here.

Contact: CMA’s reimbursement help line, 888/401-5911 or gfonseca@cmanet.org.