Practice Management Alert

Question:  I have heard that nurse practitioners must now have master’s degrees. This will affect a new hire that we planned to add to the practice. The person is properly licensed per our state laws. Can you explain this requirement?

Washington D.C. Subscriber

Answer: Unfortunately, you may have trouble enrolling a nurse practitioner (NP) in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) system if she doesn’t have a master’s degree. CMS confirmed this in a recent Open Door Forum session.

An office manager called into the session to say that when trying to enroll her NP into Medicare’s PECOS system solely for the purpose of ordering and referring, she was unable to do so. 

“We now require a master’s degree to enroll in Medicare as a nurse practitioner,” said CMS’s William Rogers, MD, in response to the question. Even though these NPs have been licensed for over 20 years and were grandfathered into Medicare when the master’s degree rules went into effect in 2000, the new ordering/referring regulations throw a wrinkle into it since the NPs didn’t enroll in Medicare prior to 2000. 

Although CMS reps did not have an immediate solution to the problem, it’s something you should look out for if you’re in a similar situation.