Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert

If you enrolled in Medicare before March 25, 2011, the Affordable Care Act requires you to revalidate your enrollment information—but practices that haven’t yet done that are probably hearing from their MACs by now.

The various MACs have been sending out revalidation requests for the past few years, and will continue to do so through March 23, 2015. Some practices, however, are confused about how to handle these requests, and Part B MAC National Government Services recently sent out an instructional note about what to do if you receive one of its “yellow envelopes,” which contain the revalidation information.

As long as you respond within 60 days of the postmark date on the letter, you won’t hold up your payments (or deactivate your billing privileges), but you should complete the application as soon as possible. The fastest way, NGS says, is to log into the Provider Enrollment Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) and submit your revalidation that way. It will require you to electronically verify your information, make any changes or updates, sign the application online, and upload any supporting documents.

If you aren’t able to access the information via PECOS, you can submit the paper CMS-855 form. Make sure your legal name on the form exactly matches the name on record with Medicare, and double check your NPI and PTAN to ensure that the revalidation goes smoothly. For more on revalidation, visit your MAC’s website or call its provider relations phone number.