CRNAs: Get Ready for the NPI

Your AANA wants you to be aware that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is rolling out the process for CRNAs and other healthcare providers to secure a new National Provider Identifier (NPI) number. This development affects most if not all CRNAs.

Authorized by Congress in 1996, the NPI succeeds the current Uniform Provider Identification Number (UPIN) system which has from time to time caused CRNAs problems and administrative burdens, particularly CRNAs providing locums services or relocating. As the NPI has been in development, AANA has advocated for a system that put CRNAs on a level playing field with anesthesiologists, physicians and other healthcare providers from the standpoint of CMS-approved identification protocols. According to CMS, "The NPI will replace health care provider identifiers that are in use today in standard transactions. Implementation of the NPI will eliminate the need for health care providers to use different identification numbers to identify themselves when conducting HIPAA standard transactions with multiple health plans."

For CRNAs who provide anesthesia services in more than one Medicare region, or who relocate, the NPI will be especially useful. Rather than having to apply for and track multiple Medicare identifiers that CRNAs must currently use for each region or facility, the NPI will serve as a CRNA's only Medicare identifier, and will help to speed up Medicare payment for such CRNAs' services.

Beginning May 23, 2005, CRNAs may begin applying for an NPI. In two years, by May 2007, CMS and most other payors will insist on each provider using the NPI in claims for reimbursement.

Information about the NPI is available to you now on the AANA member website. For more information and access to online NPI enrollment information, the AANA has posted to our website www.aana.com authoritative information from CMS. This information includes helpful links you can use to learn more about NPI, and to enroll online or via mail. Again, CMS will not begin accepting enrollments until May 23, 2005. The initial enrollment rollout lasts about two years, after which time all healthcare providers billing Medicare and other payors will be expected to do so using the NPI.

We will continue keeping you posted on further developments. Thank you for all you do for the patients for whom you care!

Sincerely,

Frank Maziarski, CRNA, MS, CLNC
AANA President
Supporting Our Members -- Protecting Our Patients