Home Health & Hospice Week

New option applies to all providers' reports.

To take advantage of Medicare's new electronic signature capability, you'll need to learn to navigate its new cost report filing avenue - the Medicare Cost Report e-Filing (MCReF) system.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced MCReF back in February (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XXVII, No. 9), but now says the system is ready to accept filings starting May 1.

In addition to allowing electronic signatures, MCReF, which is in the CMS Enterprise Identity Management (EIDM) system, should have benefits including more reliable submission and getting immediate feedback on accuracy, CMS says.

Do this: "Security Officials (SOs) and Backup SOs registered in EIDM for access to the Provider Statistical and Reimbursement (PS&R) system will have access to MCReF through their existing account," CMS explains. "Providers that are not registered in EIDM as PS&R users must register and assign an SO for their organization." You can register online at https://portal.cms.gov/wps/portal/unauthportal/home.

Tricky: The road to MCReF usage and electronic signatures may have some bumps. Cost report expert Dave Macke with VonLehman & Co. in Ft. Wright, Kentucky, expects CMS to require registered Security Officials or Backup SOs to have to submit the reports. The e-signature instructions in the new hospice cost report state "a provider ... may elect to electronically submit the settlement summary and certification statement with an electronic signature of the ... administrator or chief financial officer."

Those EIDM SOs, who are administrators or CFOs, can be hard to pin down to do the required administrative work to register in the system and submit files, Macke worries.

Macke hopes CMS will allow third-party access to MCReF, so that cost report preparers can submit their clients' cost reports for them. MCReF needs "better access," Macke tells Eli.

The new hospice cost report contains a checkbox under its certification statement that says "I have read and agree with the above certification statement. I certify that I intend my electronic signature on this certification statement to be the legally binding equivalent of my original signature."

CMS will give providers the full details and instructions on how to use MCReF and employ esignatures in its May 1 webinar on the topic. You can register for the webinar online at https://blh.ier.intercall.com.