First-Round Bidders Get One-Week Reprieve

BALTIMORE–In a notice sent through its listserv Friday
afternoon–just hours before registration was set to close on
Saturday–CMS announced it would extend the deadlines for bidder
registration and bid submissions by one week in the first round of
its DMEPOS competitive bidding program.

All bids are now due by 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on
July 20, and the new registration deadline is July 7.

According to the notice:

–On May 15, 2007, CMS issued a request for bids for the first
round of the Medicare competitive bidding program. The original due
date was 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on July 13, 2007. All
bids are now due by 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on July 20,
2007.

–Suppliers interested in bidding must first register and
receive a user ID and password before they can access the
Internet-based bid submission system. The original registration
deadline was June 30, 2007. The registration deadline is now July
7, 2007.

–Suppliers must be accredited or be pending accreditation to
submit a bid and will need to be accredited to be awarded a
contract. The accreditation deadline for the first round of
competitive bidding is Aug. 31, 2007. Suppliers should apply for
accreditation immediately to allow adequate time to process their
applications. For a list of the CMS-approved deemed accreditation
organizations, visit: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CompetitiveAcqforDMEPOS/.

Since CMS opened the bid window May 15, industry stakeholders
have complained that the program was being rushed.

As late as Thursday, the agency’s Competitive Bidding
Implementation Contractor was still fine-tuning its instructions to
bidders, posting a credit report and score clarification that added
Standard & Poor’s to the list of approved credit bureaus. The
posting notified providers that “both a credit report and a credit
score must be submitted as part of the financial
documentation.”

The CBIC site also carried a notice that the online bid
submission system had been “experiencing intermittent technical
difficulties.”

Last week, the American Association for Homecare said it had
requested an extension of the CMS deadlines based on “severe
technical problems with bid submissions, late dissemination of
critical information about the bidding process and numerous
questions about the process that have not been adequately
answered.” (For more on bidding problems, see HomeCare Monday, June 11.)

On Friday morning, the association delivered a letter urging the
agency to extend its bid window so the problems could be resolved.
The letter included the following points:

“1. The CBIC online bid submission system is primitive,
cumbersome and has been fraught with problems resulting in
excessive data input time, loss of submitted data, frequent times
when the system was non-operational and inaccessible, and hundreds
of hours of staff time that have been lost. Many of the fields on
Forms A and B display as individual screens on suppliers’
computers. Repetitive information cannot be copied into subsequent
screens and instead must be manually entered–over and over again
for suppliers with multiple bids in multiple CBAs. Even more
significant is the unreliability of the system and the inability to
predict when system issues might arise.

“2. Suppliers continue to receive critical information and
clarifications after the 60 day period online bidding period began,
rather than having all necessary information published before the
bidding window opened. Moreover, not all of the critical questions
from bidding suppliers have been adequately answered. The CBIC is
providing verbal information that is often not supported by the
final rule or other official CMS guidance. Further, there is no
discernable rationale for the questions that get addressed via
updates to the CBIC FAQs and those that are given only a verbal or
email response. We are sure you can appreciate the importance of
ensuring that all suppliers have the same information in
formulating their bids.

“3. Suppliers are receiving conflicting answers and guidance
through emails and conference calls that have created confusion.
Our members have received incorrect responses to a variety of
questions including straightforward issues such as how the
transition rules apply. Other CBIC responses have limited or no
utility because the answers do not address the question posed by
the supplier. Again, because of the lack of reliable written
guidance there is no transparency.”

The letter concluded that “significant unacceptable problems
continue to arise on a daily basis that threaten the integrity of
the bidding process and could diminish the overall competitive
goals of the program.”

To read the deadline extension notice in full, visit the CBIC
Web site at www.dmecompetitivebid.com.