WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 2, 2019)—AAHomecare has partnered with other leading home medical equipment (HME) stakeholders to develop comprehensive online educational resources to help suppliers understand the rules and requirements for competitive bidding (CB) Round 2021, which can be found at dmecbpeducation.com.
Late last week, the site added its newest feature: bidding calculators designed to show how lead item bids will impact the rest of the items in the product category. The calculators use the ratios that are on the government’s competitive bidding implementation contractor’s (CBIC’s) calculator but have additional features that provide more contextual information to help suppliers better understand the lead item pricing bid methodology and how their bids will impact all products in a product category.
To use these calculators, suppliers will need to download the macro-enabled Excel files. Suppliers can download the calculators for each product category or download the master calculator that includes all the product categories in one workbook.
How It Is Different from the CBIC Calculator
- Suppliers can choose the competitive bid area (CBA) they want to bid in and see the bid ceiling.
- Suppliers can see the average 2019 Medicare rates for all the items in the product category.
- Suppliers can see how the single payment amounts (SPAs) for all items/codes in the product category items compare to the average 2019 Medicare rates both by percentage and dollar amount.
The calculator will not allow a supplier to bid above the bid ceiling amount.
These calculators are intended to be a starting point for suppliers to see how a bid for the lead item in a product category impacts all the resulting bids for the other items in the category. The bid calculators are designed for an individual business to use; they are not pre-populated with possible bids. AAHomecare recommends that suppliers fully consider all direct and indirect costs and profit margins when trying out and evaluating the results of the bid calculators.
“HME suppliers need to know how lead item bids will impact pricing for a full range of associated products in any given category,” notes Kim Brummett, AAHomecare vice president of regulatory affairs, who led the Association’s participation in the development of the calculators. “The results from their bids in this round will not only determine Medicare reimbursements; they will also influence rates for a majority of other HME payers. It’s essential that the HME community goes into this bidding round with a clear understanding of how the process works.”
The dmecbpeducation.com resource is a collaborative undertaking of AAHomecare, the Council for Quality Respiratory Care and the VGM Group.
