Congressional Letter Seeking Competitive Bidding Transparency Sent to CMS

Stabenow Questions Berwick on Competitive Bidding

HomeCare Magazine

WASHINGTON — As the industry campaigns for CMS to release the names of providers whose bids were used to calculate Round 1 single payment amounts, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sent a letter to agency Administrator Donald Berwick on Monday questioning a number of issues with the competitive bidding rebid.

A member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, Stabenow told the recently appointed CMS chief she is concerned about the problems that surfaced in the original round of bidding (2008) and wants to find out what has been done to fix them.

Baucus Comment on Projected Savings from Medicare Competitive Bidding

Aug 01, 2010 (Congressional Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) — MEMORANDUM To: Reporters and Editors From: Scott Mulhauser and Erin Shields for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) Re: Baucus Comment on Projected Savings from Medicare Competitive Bidding Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) made the following statement today after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its projected savings for the first round of the Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment. Baucus helped to create this program as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 and worked to improve the program in the recent health care reform legislation. From Chairman Baucus: “Medicare should operate transparently and competitively to give seniors the best care possible while giving taxpayers the most for their money. Those principles were critical in health reform and they have also been critical as we’ve worked to make the Medicare competitive bidding program work as effectively as possible. This program allows Medicare to purchase equipment such as walkers and wheelchairs through a bidding process, instead of just setting standard prices for that equipment. Working together, Democrats and Republicans created this program, which will effectively reduce fraud and waste in Medicare.

Industry Says FDA Requirements Clash With CMS’ Competitive Bid Focus

Harsh Grassroots Criticism of CMS’ Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor

 An almost two-year old notice on the California American Academy of Family Physicians’ website regarding Palmetto GBA taking over as Medicare Part A/B contractor continues to generate harsh criticism of the organization that also serves as CMS’ Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor (CBIC).  Examples of relatively recent postings include:

“We are in Sacramento, does anyone have a name of an attny we can contact. Haven’t been paid since Jan.”

“I have spoken to an attorney friend about legal action against Palmetto for many of the reasons mentioned all over a simple change of address.”

CMS States Small Businesses Receive Less Than Half of Contracts

CMS has issued a press release stating that small DME suppliers, as defined by CMS not SBA, received only 48% of the Round 1 Rebid contracts.   In their 2008 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, CMS stated that they “estimate that approximately 90 percent of registered DMEPOS suppliers are considered small according to the SBA definition.

 The complete text of the press release may be found on Bid News at http://www.thecre.com/BidNews/?p=1124

CMS to Brief PAOC 6/30 — Will Not Release Rates

CMS is expected to brief the Program Advisory and Oversight Committee (PAOC) regarding rates for durable medical equipment.  The briefing will take place on Wednesday June 30 at 9:15 am. The single payment amount rates will not be released on the 30th.   Release of the competitive bid rates will likely be released later in the week.

Release of Single Payment Amounts May Be Delayed

According to information released by VGM, the release by CMS of the “single-payment amounts,” the amount CMS will pay for DME items in the Round 1 competitive bidding areas.  VGM attributes the likely delay to an article in Inside Health Policy.

Below is the verbatin story from VGM with a link to the article:

Competitive Bidding: Bid Rates Unlikely to Be Released Today
Because of a June 10 Inside Health Policy report, many DME providers and industry leaders expected CMS to announce the “winning” bids for the DME competitive bidding program today.  The report noted that CMS was to announce the single-payment amounts on June 25 and claim savings for the program before lawmakers leave for the July 4 recess.   However, according to AAHomecare’s Walt Gorski and the CBIC, it is unlikely that CMS will make this announcement until later this month. 

Who’s Watching the Watchdogs?

OMB has the explicit duty of ensuring that agencies comply with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act.  To facilitate the exercise of this authority, the law prohibits agencies from sponsoring any information collection without OMB’s approval.

CRE has formally brought to OMB’s attention PRA violations with respect to two Information Collection Requests from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concerning the Durable Medical Equipment competitive bidding program.

TAHCS Suit Seeks to Stay Competitive Bidding on Financial Standards Issue

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