August 24, 2007

Arkansas Medicaid to Have Downtime Saturday, August 25th

The Arkansas Medicaid claims processing system will be down for regular maintenance from 12:01AM, Saturday August 25th to 11:00AM, Sunday August 26th.

The EDS Pharmacy Help Desk will be available to provide eligibility verification from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on 8/25 and 8:00 AM until noon on 8/26.  The Pharmacy Help Desk may be reached at (800) 707-3854 (toll-free) within Arkansas or locally and out-of-state at (501) 374-6609, ext. 500.  Arkansas Medicaid apologizes for any inconvenience.

CMS to Make Available NPI Database on September 4th

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that they will be making National Provider Identifier (NPI) data available, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), through an online NPI Registry on September 4, 2007 and approximately a week later through a downloadable file.  Additional information on how to access the NPI Registry will be distributed when it is available.

NPI numbers are the new standard for identifying health care providers for the submission of claims.  As a reminder, Arkansas Medicaid will begin rejecting claims on October 15th, which do not contain valid prescriber NPI numbers.

CMS Releases Tamper-Resistant Prescription Pad Guidance

The new law requiring all Medicaid prescriptions to be written on tamper-proof prescription pads is scheduled to go into effect October 1, 2007.  CMS recently issued the following guidance to the state Medicaid programs to instruct them how to enforce this law.

All non-electronic prescriptions for Medicaid outpatient drugs must be executed on tamper-resistant pads in order for them to be reimbursable (electronic prescriptions, telephoned prescriptions, and fax prescriptions are not affected by this new law).  CMS clarified that to be considered tamper resistant on October 1, 2007 a prescription pad must contain at least one of the following three characteristics:

· one or more industry-recognized feature(s) designed to prevent unauthorized copying of a completed or blank prescription form; or

· one or more industry-recognized feature(s) designed to prevent the erasure or modification of information written on the prescription by the prescriber; or

· one or more industry-recognized feature(s) designed to prevent the use of counterfeit prescription forms.

However, beginning October 1, 2008, a prescription pad must contain all three characteristics to be considered tamper-resistant.

APA is working with the Arkansas Medical Society to make sure physicians are aware of this new law.  APA encourages pharmacists to assist in this effort by contacting their local physicians to make sure they will have tamper-proof prescription pads available by October 1, 2007.