Check Your Calendar on Those Refills

BALTIMORE — CMS has clarified its policy on the provision
of DMEPOS refills. Effective Aug. 2, the agency said, beneficiaries
must be contacted “no sooner than 14 calendar days prior to the
delivery/shipping date. For delivery of refills, the supplier must
deliver the DMEPOS product no sooner than 10 calendar days prior to
the end of usage for the current product.”

In addition, for items and supplies that are provided on a
recurring basis, “billing must be based on prospective, not
retrospective use.”

Read all about it in MLN Matters article MM7452.

Here’s a comment on the new billing policy from NAIMES: “This
means that conscientious suppliers who are actually saving Medicare
money by supplying only what the patient needs or has used by
billing at the end of the period must now bill prospectively and
for the ordered quantity. Contact with the patient must be made for
the next service period and prospective quantities adjusted as
necessary.”