You can fax or email the revalidation documents this time around. If your urologist sees Medicare patients, re-enrolling your provider every few years is on your to-do list. The good news is that CMS has made improvements to the re-enrollment process, according to an Oct. 10 CMS National Provider Call with the agency's Provider Enrollment Operations Group. Bad news: Background: Don't lose your ability to provide Medicare services by missing the boat on re-enrollment. Read on to see what you should do for your urology practice when that revalidation notice comes in the mail. Expect Streamlined Process CMS has met with over 100 different groups in the past year to gain insight into improving the revalidation process. "One of the focal points ... was to enhance the customer service features of processing the revalidation documents," Majestic said. For instance: CMS has decided to allow MACs to accept faxed and e-mailed submission of supporting revalidation documents, Majestic said. In the past, you may have been required to mail hard copy documents, but that will no longer be the case. Plus, you may see fewer annoying requests from your MAC when the contractor can't find necessary documentation to process your application. "We now require MACs to look for missing information rather than returning the application to you," said CMS's Zabeen Chong during the call. "This reduces the burden on the provider, having to resubmit the entire application again and again just for one piece of information that may have been missed." Also, MACs will now conduct multiple outreach attempts before any administrative action is taken, Majestic said. Here's how: When providers and suppliers don't respond, they will no longer have their Medicare billing rights immediately revoked, Majestic said. "Instead of revoking a [provider] that fails to respond, we decided to proceed with deactivation instead of revocation," he said. If you don't receive the letter and you're subsequently deactivated for failure to respond, it is relatively easy to reinstate your provider number by simply submitting the revalidation documents to the MAC as requested. Geographic update: CMS Changes PECOS Submission Timeline Earlier this year, CMS announced that providers could submit enrollment applications and updates 60 days in advance rather than 30 days as it had been previously. However, confusion has persisted in the medical community regarding what a provider should do if their location won't be ready for a site visit or validation until that 60 day effective date. "We have clarified our guidance with Medicare contractors, indicating if the location cannot be verified because it has not been established due to a future effective date, MACs have been instructed to process the application as far as they can and then hold the application until the effective date approaches and then validate the location," Chong said." The billing number won't be issued until everything can be validated, including the location."