Paper Trail for Group I O subscript 2 Patients Getting Longer

Feb 1, 2001 12:00 PM, J.P. Pieratt

Baltimore

Starting April 1, the Health Care Financing Administration will require all Group I oxygen patients to be retested and recertified within 90 days of their original certification, meaning oxygen providers will have to submit revised certificates of medical necessity for all Group I patients.

The new requirement is a revision to the Medicare Carriers Manual Transmittal 1685, which previously required only Group II and III oxygen patients to be retested and recertified.

A HCFA spokesman said it "seemed prudent to double-check and make sure there was a continued medical need for oxygen" for Group I patients.

"It's ridiculous," said Cara Bachenheimer, an attorney with Washington-based law firm Epstein, Becker and Green who specializes in health care legislation and government relations. "I don't know what their rationale was behind this except for the general notion that they think they are paying too much or that patients generally don't need oxygen. Group I patients are patients who have some chronic condition that isn't ever going to not require oxygen. This is unnecessary, it's intrusive to the patient, and it's going to cost Medicare more because they're the ones that are going to pay for the tests."