CMS Extends Bid Deadline

BALTIMORE

Hours before its first-round window for DMEPOS competitive bidding was set to close on July 27, CMS extended the deadline by 60 days. The extension followed several weeks of intense pressure from legislators and active lobbying by industry stakeholders.

But later that same day, the agency dredged up a $50,000 surety bond proposal left over from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — and upped the ante to $65,000.

The deadline for providers to submit bids was extended to Sept. 25, with the deadline for bid registration pushed to Aug. 27. The accreditation deadline for suppliers to be considered for contracts is now Oct. 31.

The extensions followed a concentrated lobbying effort by the industry that culminated in a letter from Senate Finance Committee officials to CMS requesting an extension of 90 days. In the July 20 letter, committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ranking Member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said they had “serious concerns” about problems with CMS' online bidding system and asked the agency to respond by July 25.

On that day, during a confirmation hearing for CMS Administrator nominee Kerry Weems, committee members made several requests for the extension, citing providers' difficulties in bidding. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wrapped up the hearing with a 20-minute laundry list of providers' specific bidding problems compiled by the Midwest Association of Medical Equipment Services, buying groups VGM and The MED Group and other industry associations and stakeholders from throughout the country.

Roberts read the examples of problems into the hearing record, including numerous technical difficulties and other issues with the bidding system itself, bid instructions, lack of details about the program, product category issues and changes to the process.

As part of the lobbying effort, providers were encouraged to print out actual error messages from the bidding system, which made a convincing case with legislators, according to John Gallagher, vice president, government relations, for VGM.

While CMS had indicated problems with the system had been resolved, Gallagher said, when “the print screens show errors from their own system, then it's hard for them to dispute it.”

According to MAMES Executive Director Rose Schafhauser, a 90-day extension would have been preferable, but “you take whatever you can get at this juncture.”