No Mandatory Accreditation Deadline Yet, CMS Says

BALTIMORE–CMS’ Sandra Bastinelli confirmed Wednesday that no
deadline has been set for mandatory accreditation of all Medicare
DME suppliers–at least not yet.

“Evidently, someone thought we had a drop-dead deadline for
everyone to become accredited, and someone made up a nice date of
April 2009,” Bastinelli, division director for medical review and
education in CMS’ Program Integrity Group, said of a rumor
circulating in the industry.

“Guess what,” she told 360 phone listeners who dialed in to the
agency’s Open Door Forum. “That deadline did not come from CMS …
it did not come from a leak. It wasn’t even a proposed date, that’s
the funny part. I can guarantee you that … if someone was betting
on it, it wasn’t even close.”

However, Bastinelli said, when such an accreditation date is
set, CMS will get the message out. “I promise you that it will be
on the Web site. We will also say it on the Open Door Forum, and we
will also do a mass mailing if we can by list-serv,” she said.

Bastinelli reminded callers there is one deadline that is fast
approaching: all first-round DMEPOS bidders must be accredited by
Oct. 31 in order to be considered for contracts. “We have gotten
word from some of our accrediting organizations that some of the
suppliers have refused onsite unannounced surveys,” she said,
adding that “accreditation is not just submitting an application
and paying a fee.

“I’ll give you a hint,” she continued. “Three weeks before the
deadline is not a good time to be refusing your onsite survey. When
you are refusing an onsite survey, for all intents and purposes,
you are refusing to become accredited.”

With the deadline so close, Bastinelli said, “Obviously if you
don’t already have an application, and that would be a completed
application, we have to assume that you are not … and do not want
to be a bidder.”

In an update on Thursday at a meeting of the Program Advisory
and Oversight Committee, Bastinelli said suppliers participating in
the first round are taking an average of three months to become
accredited–although she said “a few” had accomplished this in as
little as three weeks–and the average accreditation fee is
$2,500.

Some PAOC members urged CMS to go ahead and set an accreditation
deadline for all providers, saying that is the only thing that
would spark a major move toward accreditation among those outside
current bidding areas. (See top story in this issue for more on the
PAOC meeting.)