CMS Asks for Details about Competitive Bidding Problems

ARLINGTON, Va.–On Friday, the American Association for Homecare
held a conference call with officials at CMS and several other
national provider associations regarding problems with the agency’s
competitive bidding system.

According to a statement from the association issued late
Saturday, “AAHomecare initiated the call due to the overwhelming
concerns expressed by its member companies about technical issues
related to submitting bids through the online system and also the
issue of the consistency of instructions and information available
to providers during the course of the bidding process.”

During the call, the association said CMS agreed to review the
issues on another call to take place Wednesday, July 25.

To better inform CMS and AAHomecare for that discussion, the
association is asking for feedback from first-round bidders who 1)
are still having problems submitting a bid or 2) have questions
about whether their bids were based on consistent information from
CMS. The second point is related to companies “that submitted a bid
but after the fact received updated guidance or other information
that might have influenced the bid had it been known earlier,” the
association said.

AAHomecare said Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of CMS,
acknowledged the problems with the bid system during the call and
cited them as the reason for the extension in the bidding deadline
(to July 27) that was announced on Thursday.

“CMS officials said they want to be responsive to providers’
bidding problems but need to understand the nature and the
magnitude of the problems,” the association said. “Therefore,
provider feedback is important.”

AAHomecare asked that comments be sent directly to the
Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor at [email protected]
and also copied to AAHomecare at [email protected].