Bid News Blog

This news site presents breaking news on the CMS competitive bidding programs. It is interactive and readers are encouraged to post stories in their names or anonymously
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July 31, 2013

Spring comes and goes without payment amounts

From: HME News

by: Liz Beaulieu

WASHINGTON – The word on the street is that CMS won’t release the single payment amounts for the Round 1 re-compete until this fall, leaving more than one HME provider on standby.

CMS had planned to announce the amounts in the spring.

“It’s not fair,” said Chris Rice, CEO of Diamond Respiratory Care in Riverside, Calif., which submitted bids. “But nothing with this program is going to surprise me.”

CMS also plans to release the names of the contract suppliers in the fall and kick off the Round 1 re-compete on Jan. 1, 2014.

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July 23, 2013

Industry applies pressure, stands ready

From: HME News

‘I am not going to be satisfied until we get competitive bidding stopped,’ says Rep. Thompson

by: Theresa Flaherty

WASHINGTON – The heat wave blanketing the East Coast last week had nothing on the heat the HME industry applied to lawmakers as part of a virtual fly-in July 18.

“We notified every representative in the state and got a lot of good feedback,” said Paula Hardison, office manager for New Bern, N.C.-based Carolina Diabetic Supply. “We’ve shared our representatives’ email addresses with employees and customers, as well as the complaint line and the number to (the Capitol Hill switchboard).”

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July 16, 2013

Providers, beneficiaries, referral sources: No one’s happy

From: The Australian

Rebecca Urban

SHARES in ResMed have fallen sharply from recent highs amid renewed fears over the latest healthcare changes in the US.

The decline has coincided with increasing short interest in the company’s US-listed stock ahead of its upcoming fourth-quarter results, suggesting hedge fund investors are betting its earnings could disappoint.

About 19 per cent of the medical device-maker’s shares have been sold short, data from Bloomberg shows, making it one of the most shorted stocks on the New York Stock Exchange last month.

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July 9, 2013

Competitive Bidding Puts Diabetes Patients at Risk | Commentary

From: Roll Call

By Dr. Richard Kahn

On July 1, Medicare implemented the national rollout of a new competitive bidding program for durable medical products that is intended to reduce health care costs without sacrificing quality. Indeed, the government ran a pilot program in nine markets, and in that experiment, competitive bidding between medical product manufacturers helped reduce health care costs. Unfortunately, significant issues have recently surfaced that threaten to seriously undermine the ability of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to deliver quality care at these costs.

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July 2, 2013

Medicare changes affect local suppliers

From: Nooga.com

Lawmakers seeking delay in competitive bid program

By James Harrison

Eddie Jenkins had a rough time sleeping Sunday night.

Jenkins, a director at Hixson’s Access Family Pharmacy, was restless. He knew that on Monday, July 1, his role at the pharmacy would change. Instead of providing service to longtime customers who had come to rely on the business as a supplier of medical equipment, Jenkins would be the bearer of difficult and confusing news: “You have to go somewhere else.”

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