Attention All Louisiana Dental Medicaid  Providers

Implementation Deadline for the National Provider Identifier

When the National Provider Identifier (NPI) is implemented, Medicaid claims will not be processed if the NPI(s) is not registered with Louisiana Medicaid,and you will not receive your Medicaid payment. The NPI implementation deadline is May 23, 2008 and it is quickly approaching.

Effective Immediately:  All healthcare providers who do business with LA Medicaid must provide their NPI in all transactions with Provider Enrollment, such as enrolling in LA Medicaid, direct deposit change, and address change.

To maintain accurate and timely payment of medical claims, the National Provider Identifier (NPI) number must be used on all claims beginning May 23, 2008.  Providers should ensure that the NPI is indicated appropriately on claim submissions to avoid payment denials. 

It is necessary to register your NPI with Louisiana Medicaid as this information is not transmitted automatically from the enumerator. If you have not registered your NPI(s), you may register online at www.lamedicaid.com in the secured provider area, or by calling 225-216-6400 for assistance. For additional instructions regarding applying for and registering your NPI, please review the November/December Provider Update for this information.

This implementation may require system changes to your billing software. Therefore, you should immediately contact your billing vendor or billing agent to ensure your system reflects the necessary changes to add the NPI. These changes should be tested to prevent a delay in your Medicaid payment.

            Applying for an NPI

To obtain an NPI, health care providers must submit an application in one of two ways.

·        They may apply through an easy web-based application process, at https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov, or

·        They may choose to prepare a paper application and send it to the enumerator (Fox Systems). The paper application can be downloaded from the NPPES (National Plan and Provider Enumeration System) web site, or providers may contact the enumerator via the NPPES help line at 1-800-465-3203 (NPI Toll-Free) 1-800-692-2326 (NPI TTY) and request the paper application be sent to them.

            Recommendations for Enumeration

LA Medicaid will follow Medicare's enumeration recommendation which says that providers should request a NPI for each of their legacy Medicaid ID numbers. The primary reason for this recommendation is that it will assist LA Medicaid in building the best possible cross-walk file from the NPI to the current Medicaid ID number which will continue to be used for internal processing.

            Louisiana Medicaid NPI Registration Application

One-to-One Registration:

LA Medicaid providers should use the web based application located on the LA Medicaid web site, www.lamedicaid.com, to register their NPI(s) with LA Medicaid. The application is accessible from the secured provider area of this web site. You may enter this location of the web site by clicking the Provider Login button located at the upper left side of the Home page. If you have not used this area of the web site before, you will be prompted to complete a short online registration process. Once signed in to the secured area, providers will see an application link called NPI.

Alternatively, providers may choose to register their NPI using the NPI paper registration form instead of the secured web application. The hard copy registration form is available for download from the list of helpful web links.  The completed paper form may be faxed or mailed to Unisys as indicated on the form.

Unisys (Fiscal Agent for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals) will contact the registrant using the information provided on the registration form if there is any problem during registration.

Other Registration:

If you plan to enumerate with the NPPES in any other way than a one-to-one match (many-to-one or one-to-many) you may:

·      Use the NPI paper registration form, or

·      Contact the LA Medicaid NPI Assistance Line at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or (225) 216-6400 to discuss your NPI enumeration situation and determine the best method for accommodating your circumstance.

Other Important Information

Attention Group Practices: Group practices must register the NPI associated with the group Medicaid ID number as well as the NPIs assigned to the individual practitioners within the group.  LA Medicaid must be able to properly identify both the billing and servicing provider on claims. This means that both groups and individuals must be users of the secured area of the provider website to register their NPIs.  If you are not a current user, you will need register on-line as indicated above.  As an alternative to registering via the secured web application, group providers may contact the Louisiana NPI Assistance Line above for details on how to register the group and their individuals using a bulk registration process.

Attention Individual Practitioners: Individually practicing dentists who obtained an individual NPI and a business entity NPI for Medicare billing must register both NPIs with LA Medicaid to accommodate crossover claims processing.

Transitioning to the NPI

For a successful NPI implementation, all LA Medicaid providers must report their NPI(s) to Unisys.  The final compliance date is May 22, 2008. 

Providers who have not done so should immediately obtain an NPI, register it with LA Medicaid and contact any billing or software vendor to allow time for systems to be altered to accommodate the entry of the NPI (s). 

If you have not requested your NPI(s) from the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) you must complete that process first then return to the LA Medicaid NPI Registration application to register your NPI(s) after you have received it.

Questions regarding the LA Medicaid NPI implementation may be directed to the LA Medicaid NPI Assistance Line at

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or (225) 216-6400.