In conjunction with its announcement of a new surety bond requirement for HME providers, CMS also said it has revoked the billing privileges of 1,139 providers in the Los Angeles and Miami areas.
According to the agency, the providers, who were paid $265 million between 2005 and 2007, lost their privileges for not re-enrolling in Medicare, a requirement of the DMEPOS High-Risk Suppliers Demonstration, and not meeting the supplier standards.
In a Bloomberg News report, Kimberly Brandt, Medicare's director of program integrity, labeled a lot of the companies whose privileges were pulled as "storefront shams."
The massive anti-fraud demonstration was launched in October 2007 and covered some 7,700 providers in southern California and south Florida. At the time, CMS said the pilot project would run for two years and, if successful, could be expanded to other areas (see CMS Launches Anti-Fraud Demo; Industry Asks, What Took You So Long?, HomeCare Monday, July 9, 2007).
