HCFA preliminary data on uniform reporting project - Health Care Financing Administration - Updata

Healthcare Financial Management, Feb, 1992

HCFA released preliminary findings from the first year of its uniform cost reporting demonstration project in a letter to Congress, the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, and the General Accounting Office. The demonstration project, which began in 1989, was mandated by OBRA 87. All hospitals in California and Colorado are required to participate and, for the two-year duration of the demonstration, must prepare their Medicare cost reports and additional worksheets using a uniform electronic format (see October 1989 and September 1987 "Updatas").

HCFA'S preliminary findings caution against using data collected thus far because some unavailable, estimated data are inconsistent. For example, because providers have no reason to collect bad debt data by payer, this information has been estimated in various ways for the project. Patient accounting systems usually identify the payer responsible for paying a receivable but do not collect this detailed information with respect to revenue. Because several payers may be responsible for a single case and because paver responsibility changes, it is difficult to consistently classify this type of information.

HCFA is working to identify the degree to which reported data conforms with the project requirements and will identify the cost of compliance. HFMA consistently has expressed the view that the extent of detail that the project is designed to collect is excessive for the identified purposes and that the effort cannot be cost-justified.