This story was updated at 11:55 am on April 17.
 
Update: CMS announced through a provider listserv message April 17 that it has lifted the hold on home health final claims effective immediately.
 
CMS’ self-imposed April 15 deadline to lift a hold on all home health final claims has come and gone with no fix for the underlying problem in sight.
 
In a message sent out via the Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) email lists April 16, CMS says claims are still being held due to “technical issues with certain parts of the April 2013 quarterly systems release.” In addition to home health final claims, the issue has also affected certain inpatient and outpatient claims.  
 
Because the claim hold began April 1, the same day the 2% sequestration cut went into effect, some have argued that the task of applying that cut to Medicare payments is what caused the system issue.
 
CMS had projected that processing of all claims would resume by April 15, but the needed system fixes “are taking slightly longer to finalize than expected,” according to the CMS message.
 
More bad news: CMS anticipates that all claims affected by the hold will be released for processing on April 17 – with the exception of home health final claims. The federal Medicare agency is “working to quickly resolve” this problem and will issue a message to announce the anticipated release date for home health claims once it’s been determined, CMS says.