Home Health & Hospice Week

The provision requiring transfer of oxygen equipment ownership after 36 months may be off, but there's another important oxygen regulation that's still in effect.

The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act repealed the oxygen title transfer provision, CMS' Joel Kaiser acknowledged in the Sept. 17 Open Door Forum for home care providers. But another Deficit Reduction Act provision requiring suppliers not to replace oxygen equipment in the first 36 months still applies to suppliers.

Exceptions: "There are certain situations where an oxygen supplier can switch oxygen modalities or oxygen equipment for a patient," Kaiser explained. "Those would be when a physician orders different equipment, when a beneficiary elects to upgrade to newer technology equipment, or when the equipment that the supplier is furnishing has been lost, stolen, or irreparably damaged."

"We have heard of situations where suppliers are violating this regulation," Kaiser said. "They are replacing oxygen equipment and these replacements do not fall under one of the exceptions provided in the regulation."

Warning: "Suppliers should not be doing this," Kaiser cautioned. "We're going to keep tabs on individual cases, follow up ... and if necessary we'll have to remedy the situation in some way if the problem continues."

CMS still hasn't implemented MIPPA's DME billing provisions, Kaiser noted. The agency is still in "the planning stages."

CMS is holding an Oct. 14 in-person conference at its Baltimore headquarters to explain DME accreditation, the agency's Sandra Bastinelli told the forum. Medicare's accreditation deadline is September 2009, she reminded listeners.

Resource: Suppliers can access a MIPPA accreditation fact sheet at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicareProviderSupEnroll/Downloads/DMEPOSAccreditationMIPPA-FactSheet.pdf.