Bid News Blog

From: HME News

WATERLOO, Iowa – The VGM Group will travel to the nine cities included in Round 1 of competitive bidding to give seminars on the re-compete program scheduled to kick off this fall.

During the daylong seminars, VGM’s bidding expert Mark Higley will cover all facets of the re-compete, including registering for the program, submitting bids and filing hard copy documents. He will also cover strategies and pitfalls.

Attendees will receive take-home CDs that include various preparation “tools” and checklists. The cost: $199 for the first attendee and $149 for additional attendees.

From: Home Care Magazine

WATERLOO, Iowa —VGM Group, Inc., is asking providers to contact legislators and ask them to send a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to stop a recent ruling. The CMS ruling, posted June 7 on the CGS Jurisdiction C DME MAC website, requires providers to replace a capped rental item if it is determined that it is incapable of lasting five years. The request for provider assistance in fighting the rule was posted on VGM’s Legislative Update blog.

A new study by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, attached below, blasts CMS’ “competitive” bidding auction for Durable Medical Equipment.  The study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that CMS’ decision to use non-binding bids and median bid pricing does NOT result in competitive prices.  Of particular concern to Medicare beneficiaries and their families, the paper also found that the auction “fails to satsify demand.”  Researchers has already shown based on CMS data that utilitzation of life-sustaining home medical equipment dropped sharply under the new acquisition program.  Specifically, the paper concluded that: “The CMS auction fails to generate competitive prices of goods and fails to satisfy demand.”