Home Health & Hospice Week

Agency also revokes billing privileges for more than 1,100 suppliers in Florida, L.A. The feds continue to come down hard on fraud and abuse in the durable medical equipment industry, and the result is making life more difficult for legitimate suppliers -- especially small ones. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued the final rule for the DME surety bond, which it proposed in August 2007. CMS will require existing suppliers to obtain a $50,000 bond by Oct. 2. New suppliers applying for Medicare enrollment would need a bond even quicker -- by May 4, CMS says in a release. The amount of a bond could go even higher for "suppliers who have had certain adverse legal actions imposed against them in the past," CMS says. CMS estimates a $50,000 bond will cost suppliers about $1,500 a year, but the National Association for Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers puts [...]