Home Health & Hospice Week

Updates to Medicare’s Provider Integ-rity Manual have resulted in changes to the pro-vider enrollment process, HHH Medicare Admini-strative Contractor CGS points out on its website.

Change #1: “To be an authorized or delegated official, the person MUST have and MUST submit his/her social security number (SSN),” CGS stresses. “An Individual Taxpayer Identification Num-ber (ITIN) CANNOT be used in lieu of an SSN.”

Change #2: “The provider’s initial submission of a certification statement ... requires the submission of BOTH the signature page and the page containing the certification terms,” CGS continues. But if your MAC requires you to resubmit a newly signed certification statement, “ONLY the actual signature page is required; the additional page containing the certification terms need not be submitted unless the contractor requests it.”

Change #3: For initial and revalidation ap-plications, “the certification statement MUST be signed and dated by an authorized official of the provider,” CGS instructs. While the provider can have an unlimited number of authorized officials, section 6 of the Form CMS-855 MUST be completed for each one; an authorized official MUST be a 5 percent direct owner, chairman of the board, etc., of the enrolling provider; and you can’t use your status as the CEO, CFO etc., of the parent company, management company, or chain home office as a basis to be the provider’s authorized official, CGS says.

See more information at www.cgsmedicare.com/hhh/pubs/news/2014/0614/cope25848.html.