Dear HCAA Members:

As I arrived at the office this morning, I was gently reminded it is autumn. The sun was stretching over the horizon illuminating the leaves with their vivid fall colors and the air was crisp with frost. Entering the office I am also quickly reminded that it must be the fourth quarter. Business activity is high; renewals, retention, proposals, work volumes, staffing modules. It must be a day in the life of a TPA.

This is a busy time for all of us working in and around the TPA industry. We anxiously await this critical time of the year and look forward to positive results. I hope your transition from 4010 to 5010 is going well and the ominous ICD-10 implementation has momentum. The opportunities and challenges of 2012 and 2013 are quickly approaching. There are many requirements, rules and regulations yet to be explained, written and implemented. HCAA is diligently working to keep you informed as updates and new information is released. I encourage you to participate in HCAA sponsored webinars. "SPD's, SBC's and Plan Documents: Communicating with Participants After Health Care" was presented on November 9, 2012 at no cost to you. Please watch for upcoming webinars. Is there a topic you would like to see covered in a webinar? Please contact Carol Berry or a board member and let us know. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to meeting your educational needs.

Planning for our 2012 Executive Forum, "Where Innovation Meets Reality, The TPA of the Future", is well underway. Registration is now available at, www.hcaa.org. I look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas, February 7-9, 2012.

As the holidays approach, I encourage you to take a moment to enjoy the autumn leaves and step away from the chaos around us. I wish you, your team and your families a productive fourth quarter and peaceful holiday season.

Respectfully,

Carolyn Jarschke

President

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2012 Executive Forum Registration is Open for Business!

Registration is now available for HCAA's premier event - the 2012 Executive Forum taking place at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, NV, February 7-9!

Where Innovation Meets Reality
The TPA of the Future

Register Today!

The Executive Forum is the must-attend industry event for TPA's and the professionals who serve them. The forum is a one-stop-shop for networking with peers, information sharing and hearing about the latest trends and best practices for third party administrators.

This year's program includes information from key industry experts on the following topics:

• Keynote Presentation: Capitalizing on Innovation: The Future is What We Make of It
• Career Transformation...the New Frontier
• Health Exchanges: Where is the Opportunity for TPA's?
• ACO's, PCMH's, TPA's & the Rest of the Alphabet Soup
• CEO Panel: Innovative Approaches to Winning the Business
• Social Media Boot Camp
• High Performance Custom Networks
• Defending Self-Insurance

You will not want to miss this event so register today! The discounted early bird registration fee is available through January 18th.

Is your company looking for greater exposure? Sponsorship opportunitiesare selling out quickly but some conference items are still available. Contact Linda Ludwick for more information or to find out what is still available.  

Take the First Step in Becoming a CSFS® Today!

HCAA's Certified Self Funding Specialist® designation is pleased to report that we have just reached a milestone of forty CSFS® designees since the inception of the program in 2009. We want to congratulate all that have worked so hard to study and achieve the designation. We understand the challenges that students face in balancing work, home and study to take our CSFS® courses. However, we feel that the completion of the designation will help the students differentiate themselves in their market and will help them demonstrate their expertise in self funding.  

To start the process toward achieving your CSFS® designation, click here and enroll in the "Introduction to Self Funding, Risk Management, and the TPA Environment". Remember that all courses are taken online at your own speed. After the initial course, you can take the remaining six courses in any order desired. Each chapter has study questions to assist you in first understanding how the material is tested and second to give you experience in the types of questions asked. Study questions once answered provide you with information on what is the right answer if you chose the wrong one. When you take the test for the course there will be fifty questions in each test. Grading is done immediately. A percentage grade is recorded. Questions answered incorrectly are not shown.

Our purpose in creating this designation was to provide the industry with an opportunity to learn more about self funding as an option in the choice of health care administration. We expose you not only the vocabulary of our industry, but the processes. We discuss stop loss and marketing; cost containment and vendor selections; accounting, funding and tax consequences; actuarial, legal, reporting and Disclosure; state regulations and federally mandated benefits; and MEWA and VEBA. No where else can you get this much information about self funding! Become a Certified Self Funding Specialist® today.

Save the Date! HCAA's TPA University will be held from July 11-13, 2012 at the Swissotel in Chicago, IL. Click here for hotel information and to make your reservations today. Registration will open in early 2012.

This year's theme Thriving in "Interesting Times" is both timely and relevant. You will not want to miss this unique industry opportunity to network and exchange information with your peers.

Interested in taking your HCAA membership to the next level and contributing to the success of TPA U? Send us an e-mail at hcaainfo@hcaa.org for information on joining the TPA University Planning Committee.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), all physicians and other health care providers that submit claims electronically are required to transition to the Version 5010 transactions by Jan. 1. One of many data reporting changes in the Version 5010 transactions is the requirement to report only a street address or physical location as the billing provider address.

Practices that wish to continue having payments sent to a P.O. Box or lock box will report this address in the "pay-to" address field.

Providers may need to work with their practice management system vendor, billing service, or clearinghouse to have this address change made for their claims. This work needs to be done prior to Jan. 1 to prevent claims rejections and interruptions in their cash flow.

For more information on reporting changes in the Version 5010 transactions, please visit: www.ama-assn.org/go/5010 or www.cms.gov/Versions5010andD0. Submitted by AMA

November 17th, CMS announced that its Office of E-Health Standards and Services will delay enforcement of compliance with HIPAA 5010 transaction sets from Jan. 1, 2012, to March 31, 2012. Despite the 90-day delay of enforcement action, OESS said it will accept complaints related to noncompliance with the HIPAA 5010 standards starting Jan. 1, 2012. Click here to view the announcement.