Health Information Compliance Alert

Practices groaned at the notion that they'll have to track down physicians for more signature statements, despite doing so just last Thanksgiving.

Remember last year, when you scoured your facility asking each physician to sign signature statements to get them into PECOS? Get ready to do it again as part of CMS's revalidation process. At least that's the word from the Part B Jurisdiction 13 Ask the Contractor Teleconference, hosted by NGS Medicare on Sept. 13.

"You have no doubt heard that CMS is requiring that all Medicare providers revalidate their Medicare provider enrollment information," said NGS's Jim Bavoso during the call. "In a nutshell, CMS is asking any provider who is not currently in the PECOS system to enroll, and to do it quickly. That's phase one. The second part, stage two, is any provider who enrolled prior to March 25, 2011 will have to revalidate their information," Bavoso added.

Play the waiting game: At this point, you shouldn't do anything -- instead wait for your carrier to send you a letter. The MACs have identified all of the providers that aren't in PECOS, and each MAC is putting together letters to those practices to let them know they need to join PECOS. "We are sending letters to these doctors on a staggered basis, and we began this process last week," Bavoso added.

For phase two, anyone who is in PECOS but has not made changes since before March 25, 2011 will be asked to revalidate their information. "Don't do anything at this point until you hear from us," Bavoso said. "We will identify each of those providers and will send them a letter telling them they need to revalidate." Those providers will simply have to check their PECOS listings, and if they are accurate you'll just need to sign and revalidate the listing. If you need to make changes, you'll do so at that point.

One caller complained that her staff just enrolled in PECOS last November -- less than a year ago -- so she was concerned that she'll still have to revalidate since she hasn't changed her information since March 25, 2011. Although the NGS rep. acknowledged that CMS made the rules and NGS is just passing on the information, Bavoso said the revalidation will be somewhat painless. "You'll just go into PECOS and review that provider's file, and if there's no change, then it's done." However, another NGS rep. added, you will have to ask each provider to sign a signature statement and mail that in, even if you have no changes to that provider's file.

For more on CMS's revalidation process, visit www.cms.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/SE1126.pdf.