Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS reveals more bidding program details at PAOC meeting. Suppliers wondering how the relaunch of competitive bidding will affect them got more details at a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services meeting in Baltimore June 4. CMS had earlier announced that the bidding process would begin this fall (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XVIII, No. 21, p. 163). At the Program Advisory and Oversight Committee (PAOC) meeting, the agency distributed a more detailed timeline listing bidding activities for 2010, including announcement of bid winners next summer, the American Association for Homecare notes. Round one would then go live in January 2011. AAHomecare representatives engaged in “heated discussion” with CMS during the meeting, the trade group says. Chief concerns were that CMS is underestimating the number of suppliers that is sufficient to serve a bid area and is setting prices unfairly under the program. Industry reps pointed out bidding’s “severe deficiencies” during [...]