Medicare Issues PECOS Enrollment Instructions For Ordering Docs.
Published on Tue Aug 24, 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is clearing one more obstacle from the path of the PECOS edits set to begin Oct. 4 for home health agencies. Physicians who do not seek Medicare payment but need to enroll in PECOS to order or refer patients for Medicare services can now do so, CMS says in Sept. 17 CR 7097. That includes docs who are employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Public Health Service, Department of Defense Tricare, federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, or critical access hospitals; dentists and oral surgeons; and physicians in a fellowship. In fact, "any provider can enroll for the sole purpose of ordering or referring, regardless of who their employer is," CMS says in the transmittal. Such physicians must complete a paper form CMS-855I, sections 1, 2, 3, 13 and 15. And they must "include a cover letter with their paper form [...]