ELYRIA, Ohio — Last month the FDA issued a warning letter to Invacare for failure to document adequately reports of complaints involving hospital beds manufactured at the company's Sanford, Fla., plant. According to the Dec. 15 letter, posted to the FDA website, one complaint alleges the control box of a bariatric bed caught fire and two patients were taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.
HomeCare News
BALTIMORE — CMS has added an important clarification to a message first sent Jan. 3 alerting grandfathered suppliers of a possible problem on claims submitted under competitive bidding.
LAS VEGAS — Registration is open for Medtrade Spring, April 12-14 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. Register now to get the Early Bird discount of $25 for the Expo and $99 to attend the educational conference and Expo. To register, visit the Medtrade Spring website.
BALTIMORE — CMS will hold a national provider teleconference on "Preparing for ICD-10 Implementation in 2011" on Wednesday, Jan. 12 from 1 to 3 p.m. ET. The target audience includes medical coders, physician office staff, provider billing staff, health records staff, vendors, educators, system maintainers and all Medicare fee-for-service providers. Subject matter experts will review basic information on the transition to ICD-10 along with implementation preparation strategies in 2011.
BALTIMORE — CMS has launched its annual Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey, offering FFS providers and suppliers the opportunity to tell CMS how their contractors are doing on inquiries, outreach and education, claims processing, medical review, audits and more. The 20-minute survey was sent to 30,000 providers and can be completed on the Internet, by mail, fax or telephone.
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, and PITTSBURGH — Royal Philips Electronics announced in a press release today that it has acquired "substantially all of the assets" of Pittsburgh-based MedSage Technologies, which offers a voice and email application that providers can use to interact with patients.
ATLANTA — Less than a week into competitive bidding, state and national home medical equipment associations are already fielding reports of fallout from providers and other stakeholders — and the complaints are on the rise.
ARLINGTON, Va. — After tracking the impact of increasingly tough and proliferating audits on HME providers, officials at the American Association for Homecare say it's time for CMS to rein in its Medicare audit contractors.
BALTIMORE — On Jan. 3, the first full business day after competitive bidding was implemented over the New Year weekend, a CMS message said the agency has identified a "possible problem" when grandfathered suppliers submit claims for purchased accessories and supplies for use with grandfathered equipment under the bidding program.
INDIANAPOLIS — National Government Services, the Jurisdiction B DME MAC, has posted a summary of questions and answers from its Ask-the-Contractor teleconference on Dec. 7.
BALTIMORE — If you thought the KX was tough to get a handle on, try this recently released list of new claims modifiers for use under competitive bidding:
ATLANTA — After a number of technical problems with a Dec. 28 webinar on competitive bidding, CMS officials said they would have to reschedule the presentation for suppliers in the Charlotte, Miami and Orlando competitive bidding areas.
AUSTIN, Texas — With Texas' Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (TCPA) moving ahead on a proposed rule to allow competitive bidding for Medicaid incontinence supplies, the Medical Equipment Suppliers Association (MESA) has submitted an alternate proposal.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — According to a message last week from the Jurisdiction C DME MAC, CMS' Atlanta regional office and the local Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor (CBIC) ombudsmen will hold a webinar tomorrow (Tuesday, Dec. 28) for suppliers that service Medicare beneficiaries in the Charlotte, Miami and Orlando competitive bidding areas.
WASHINGTON — HHS' Office of Inspector General has found that Medicare paid South Florida suppliers for up to 10 times more units of the nebulizer drug arformoterol (brand name Brovana) than the drug's manufacturer Sepracor and the three largest wholesalers distributed in the area in 2008 and the first half of 2009.
FARGO, N.D. — A Dec. 23 notice from Noridian Administrative Services, the Jurisdiction D DME MAC, said the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) contractor has been identifying "a significant number of errors on claims for oxygen with the most recent error rate at 71.17 percent."
According to NAS, oxygen is the highest source of errors in the jurisdiction, with most due to insufficient documentation to support medical necessity.
BALTIMORE — In a trio of competitive bidding updates sent Dec. 20, CMS said:
1) The agency "is in the process of mailing a letter to referral agents in CBAs to remind them that the program is starting on Sat., Jan. 1, 2011."
ATLANTA — Joan Cross is over — for the most part — being mad. Now she is mainly just sad.
The home medical equipment industry she has known and loved for decades is disappearing, done in by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' dogged determination to implement DMEPOS competitive bidding on Jan. 1.
It's a project she has fought for 20 years.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Last week, economist Peter Cramton presented his plan for a new design of competitive bidding and said Round 1 of the program should be stopped to "come up with an approach that works and works well."
SOMERSET, Pa. — DeVilbiss Healthcare announced last week that it is reducing the warranty on its 5-Liter Compact Concentrator 525 Series (525DS) from five years to three on new products sold on or after Jan. 4, 2011, in North America.