Accreditation Details Confusing Down to the Wire; 81,000+ Haven’t Reported Bonding Info

ATLANTA–The mandatory deadlines for DMEPOS accreditation (Oct.
1) and surety bonds (Oct. 2) are now only weeks away, and providers
are scrambling to make sure their accreditation and bonding
information is on file with the National Supplier Clearinghouse. If
it isn’t, CMS officials have said, Medicare billing
privileges will be revoked. 
 
Agency officials have made that very clear, in fact.
 
During an Open Door Forum in July, CMS’ Jim Bossenmeyer said,
“This is very simple … If you are not in compliance on
Oct. 1 [for accreditation] or not in compliance on Oct. 2 for the
surety bond, the [National Supplier Clearinghouse] will take the
necessary actions to revoke your billing
privileges.”

What isn’t so clear is exactly how providers are supposed
to verify their information was received and/or has been filed
correctly.

On that same Open Door call, Bossenmeyer, director of CMS’
Division of Provider/Supplier Enrollment, said there was “not
a process whereby you can check the information with the
NSC.” He advised providers to keep copies of any information they
had sent off.

Providers have been flooding the NSC with calls to check on
their information, but on an Open Door call for pharmacies Aug. 26,
Bossenmeyer said the NSC contractor (Palmetto GBA) doesn’t
have the resources to field all the calls. He said the accrediting
organization will inform the NSC that the accreditation has been
completed.

DME providers must notify the NSC that they have obtained a
surety bond, however, and CMS staff encouraged listeners on the
call to maintain proof that they sent a copy of the bond to the
NSC, such as a receipt from the delivery company or the post
office.
 
According to a report from Rose Schafhauser, executive director of
the Midwest Association of Medical Equipment Services and a member
of the National Supplier Clearinghouse Advisory Committee, on Aug.
24 the NSC sent letters “to all suppliers who did not have
either accreditation or bond or had neither.”

There were apparently a lot of those letters. In a status
report, NSC advised the committee that 81,288 suppliers who should
have surety bonds for their locations had yet to report, with 500
reports pending.

On the Wednesday Open Door, Bossenmeyer said providers should
choose a bond company from the list on the Department of Treasury Web
site to avoid companies that are “fly by
night.”
  
He also noted that providers who do not intend to provide DME in
the near future should terminate Medicare participation voluntarily
by amending their enrollment applications. By voluntarily
“stepping down,” he said, they will remain in the NSC
database and can apply to re-enroll whenever they are eligible.
Billing privileges will start again following their re-acceptance
into the program.

For more information on accreditation and surety bonds, see
these recently posted documents on the NSC Web site:

Bond/Accreditation Exemption Chart:
http://www.palmettogba.com/Palmetto/Providers.nsf/files/exemptionschartfinal.pdf/$FIle/exemptionschartfinal.pdf

Accreditation FAQs:
http://www.palmettogba.com/Palmetto/Providers.nsf/files/accreditationFAQS08292009.pdf/$FIle/accreditationFAQS08292009.pdf

Surety Bond FAQs:
http://www.palmettogba.com/Palmetto/Providers.nsf/files/suretybondfaqs08282009.pdf/$FIle/suretybondfaqs08282009.pdf

Sample Beneficiary Letters from Suppliers Who Will Not Be
Accredited or Bonded:
http://www.palmettogba.com/Palmetto/Providers.nsf/files/templatelettertobeneficiary.pdf/$FIle/templatelettertobeneficiary.pdf

 
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