Home Health & Hospice Week

Summer not likely to be leisurely in DME land.

No accreditation, no Medicare revenue. That message was firmer than ever when the feds recently gave home medical equipment suppliers an Aug. 31 accreditation deadline for competitive bidding.

"I don't understand why [the deadline] had to be set as early as it was," says Mary Ellen Conway of Capital Healthcare, echoing the sentiment of suppliers who put off accreditation. Many suppliers waited to test the accreditation waters until the feds' release of a final rule regarding Medicare's new competitive bidding program for providers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies, consultants report.

Background: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a final rule implementing the program on April 2 (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVI, No. 12). And since the rule's release, CMS has been forging ahead with plans to implement the first bidding phase in April 2008.

To participate in the program, suppliers must meet quality standards and be accredited by one of 10 CMS-approved "deemed accreditation organizations."

Suppliers vying for contracts in the first phase of the program must be accredited by Aug. 31. Suppliers also must be accredited or have applied for accreditation to submit a bid.

Surveyors Await Your Call

At a home health Open Door Forum on April 25, CMS officials said they were puzzled by suppliers' apparent lack of action.

"Suppliers have not appeared to have availed themselves of the opportunity to seek accreditation," said CMS' Sandra Bastinelli, noting that the accrediting organizations have staffed up and are ready to meet the demand for new surveys.

Flip side: But suppliers were reportedly lining up at booths manned by the accrediting organizations at two major trade shows coinciding with the CMS forum, MedTrade Spring in Las Vegas and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice's annual policy conference in Washington, DC.

"The tide has turned," Conway tells Eli. "Perhaps suppliers were waiting for the opportunity to talk one on one with representatives of the organizations."

Bottom line: Slow start or not, one thing is certain for affected suppliers in the program's first competitive bidding areas: Aug. 31 is less than four months away.

"There's time," allows Bob Floro of the Joint Commission. "But there's not much time."