Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS) now have a firm date for mandatory accreditation -- and more deadlines are looming.

Definite: If you are an existing Medicare-certified DMEPOS supplier with a provider number, you must achieve accredited status no later than Sept. 30, 2009. Fail to and your provider number will be revoked, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) stressed at a special DME Open Door Forum on Dec. 19. More than 750 callers dialed into the forum.

Uncertain: At the forum, CMS failed to pin down accreditation deadlines for DME suppliers seeking new Medicare numbers from the National Suppliers Clearinghouse, repeatedly telling forum callers to be alert to future announcements.

But in spite of remaining mum during the forum, the agency did specify drop-dead dates for such suppliers in a report to Congress. And in an announcement released via the CMS pharmacy listserv, the agency noted these specific deadlines for new DME players:

• Suppliers applying for numbers before March 1, 2008, must be accredited by January 1, 2009.

• Suppliers applying for numbers on March 1 or later must be accredited at the time of application.

The pharmacy listserv missive was signed by Chris Worrall, special assistant in the CMS Office of the Administrator.

Expect questions about the new supplier dates at the Jan. 9 Home Health Open Door Forum, predicts Mary Ellen Conway, president of Capital Healthcare Group in Bethesda, MD.

Regardless of how the final dates play out for new suppliers, unaccredited existing suppliers have their work cut out for them in the coming year.

"Get in the queue now," urged CMS' Sandra Bastinelli at the forum.

Though an accreditation time, from application to accredited status, may average four to six months, some suppliers will find the process takes considerably longer, experts say.

Still, some industry representatives have charged CMS with allowing too much time for mandatory accreditation.

"We are disappointed to learn that we are still pretty far away from required accreditation," Eric Sokol of the Power Mobility Coalition says. "Accreditation is the most meaningful barrier we have for keeping fraudulent suppliers out of Medicare."

Resources: To hear a replay of the Dec. 19 event, download the recording available at www.cms.hhs.gov/OpenDoorForums/05_ODF_SpecialODF.asp.

To dial into the Jan. 9 forum, scheduled for 2 p.m. ET, call 1-800-837-1935 and enter conference ID 18789483.

For a list of organizations approved by CMS, go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CompetitiveAcqforDMEPOS and scroll down to select "Deemed Accreditation Organizations for Suppliers of DMEPOS."