Every insurance carrier is required to be HIPAA compliant by October 2002, with the exception of small insurance carriers, they have an automatic extension to October 2003.

What this means is they must be able to accept electronic claims in the new standard format. Part of HIPAA is to make everything universal and simple. Right now each carrier has it's own requirement for electronic claims. Due to HIPAA, there will be only one requirement.

This also requires your billing software to be able to send electronic claims in this new format.

You will still be able to send paper claims and the carrier is required to accept them. Unless the carrier has a way to accept secondary claims electronically, paper claims will still need to be sent with the EOB.