For those of you planning to electronically comment on the Claims
Attachments NPRM as specified in the Federal Register {Volume 70, Number
184, 23 September 2005, page 55990, column 1}, please note the
following.

1) DO NOT WAIT UNTIL MONDAY, 23 January 2006, to electronically
submit your comments. As of this evening, 1/13/2006, the Comment
Period Ends date on the electronic Dockets Open for Comment page
remains displayed as 1/21/2006 for the Claims Attachment NPRM. Based on
e-mail exchanges I've had with Lorraine Tunis Doo of CMS, there's no
guarantee that this date will be corrected in time, and comments beyond
the normal business / work day of Friday, 1/20/2006, might end up being
blocked.

2) Due to ongoing CMS work on their web site, the link landing spot
for e-commenting on all of their materials has fluctuated -- including
not working at all for a while last month.

Again, as of this evening, 1/13/2006, here's how to make e-commenting
work.

Link to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/regulations/ecomments
[as stated in the Claims Attachments NPRM]

Click on "e-Rulemaking"
[located under the Policies heading in the lower portion of the
second column in the main box on the screen]

Click on "Submit electronic comments on CMS regulations with an
open comment period"
[located near the bottom of the screen]

Click on "Go" for the row identified as CMS-0050-P:
"Standards for Electronic Health Care Claim Attachments".

Fill in some minimal demographics on a screen, and then click
"Continue"

Type, or copy and paste, up to 4,000 characters into the displayed
comment box ... and/or follow the displayed instructions to include
a file, which may be longer, as an attachment.


Please feel free to pass this alert along to anybody else you think
may find it important. And a pleasant Martin Luther King three-day
holiday weekend to all who get it.

Dave Feinberg
Rensis Corporation [A Consulting Company]
206-617-1717
DAFeinberg@...