We have reported to you occasionally, but not consistently or reliably or intelligibly, about the new obligation of product liability defendants and others to report settlements and other payments on personal injury claims to Medicare authorities. See, for example, our posts titled Boring Stuff We Need to Know and More Boring Stuff We Need to Know. The reporting obligation has been extended several times and was scheduled to kick in starting on January 1, 2011 – an extension we did not tell you about. We told you we are not reliable chroniclers of boring stuff. What can we say? We’d rather write about preemption or Daubert or TwIqbal.
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which goes by the confusing acronym CMS instead of the more logical CMMS, announced that the reporting deadline for some but not all entities and some but not all settlements has been postponed for one full year. The CMS alert states: “The required submission of liability insurance (including self-insurance) initial claim reports has been changed from the first calendar quarter of 2011 to the first calendar quarter of 2012 for all liability insurance (including self-insurance) TPOC amounts with no ORM involvement. Liability insurance (including self-insurance) ORM reporting is not subject to this delay.”
We speak bureaucratese about as well as we speak jive (R.I.P., Barbara Billingsley). Here is a rough translation: The deadline for reporting personal injury settlements and other payment obligations (that’s TPOC) has been extended for one year, until the quarter starting January 1, 2012, but only for settlements or other payments paid by liability insurance or the defendant itself (that’s self-insurance) and not for no-fault insurance and workers’ compensation. The extension does not apply to settlements or other payment obligations that include an ongoing responsibility for paying the injured party’s medical bills (that’s ORM).
This is complicated stuff that is very important to our clients, so if you have an issue in this area, please read the CMS alert and consult with professional translators of CMS bureaucratese.