Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Status of Medicare Providers Unknown (Letter
Report, 07/28/1999, GAO/AIMD-99-243).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the: (1) Health Care
Financing Administration's (HCFA) outreach and testing efforts for
ensuring that Medicare providers will be year 2000 compliant; and (2)
surveys that have been completed to date or planned on the year 2000
status of healthcare providers.

GAO noted that: (1) HCFA has taken comprehensive measures in conducting
its outreach activities; (2) for example, the HCFA Administrator sent
individual letters to over 1.1 million Medicare providers in January and
May of this year, alerting them to take prompt year 2000 action on their
information and billing systems; (3) in addition, HCFA held a series of
year 2000 conferences throughout the country and has established a
toll-free information hotline; (4) despite these aggressive actions,
however, HCFA data show that provider participation in its outreach
activities has been low; (5) further, HCFA has tasked contractors that
process Medicare claims to test with providers using future dated
claims; (6) as of June 21, 1999, Medicare contractor testing with
providers had been limited and testing that has occurred had identified
problems; (7) for example, HCFA reported that one contractor tested with
434 providers and encountered initial problems with 123--9 of which were
considered critical failures; (8) many surveys have been completed this
year on the year 2000 readiness of healthcare providers by healthcare
trade associations and other organizations; (9) however, none of the 11
surveys GAO reviewed provided sufficient information with which to
assess the year 2000 status of the healthcare provider community; and
(10) each of the surveys had low response rates and several did not
address critical questions about testing and contingency planning.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  AIMD-99-243
     TITLE:  Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Status of Medicare Providers
	     Unknown
      DATE:  07/28/1999
   SUBJECT:  Y2K
	     Health care programs
	     Systems conversions
	     Strategic information systems planning
	     Computer software verification and validation
	     Systems compatibility
	     Surveys
	     Information resources management
	     Claims processing
	     Medical information systems
IDENTIFIER:  Medicare Program
	     Y2K