BALTIMORE--In a notice sent through its listserv Friday afternoon--just hours before registration was set to close on Saturday--CMS announced it would extend the deadlines for bidder registration and bid submissions by one week in the first round of its DMEPOS competitive bidding program.

All bids are now due by 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on July 20, and the new registration deadline is July 7.

According to the notice:

--On May 15, 2007, CMS issued a request for bids for the first round of the Medicare competitive bidding program. The original due date was 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on July 13, 2007. All bids are now due by 9:00 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on July 20, 2007.

--Suppliers interested in bidding must first register and receive a user ID and password before they can access the Internet-based bid submission system. The original registration deadline was June 30, 2007. The registration deadline is now July 7, 2007.

--Suppliers must be accredited or be pending accreditation to submit a bid and will need to be accredited to be awarded a contract. The accreditation deadline for the first round of competitive bidding is Aug. 31, 2007. Suppliers should apply for accreditation immediately to allow adequate time to process their applications. For a list of the CMS-approved deemed accreditation organizations, visit: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CompetitiveAcqforDMEPOS/.

Since CMS opened the bid window May 15, industry stakeholders have complained that the program was being rushed.

As late as Thursday, the agency's Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor was still fine-tuning its instructions to bidders, posting a credit report and score clarification that added Standard & Poor's to the list of approved credit bureaus. The posting notified providers that "both a credit report and a credit score must be submitted as part of the financial documentation."

The CBIC site also carried a notice that the online bid submission system had been "experiencing intermittent technical difficulties."

Last week, the American Association for Homecare said it had requested an extension of the CMS deadlines based on "severe technical problems with bid submissions, late dissemination of critical information about the bidding process and numerous questions about the process that have not been adequately answered." (For more on bidding problems, see HomeCare Monday, June 11.)

On Friday morning, the association delivered a letter urging the agency to extend its bid window so the problems could be resolved. The letter included the following points:

"1. The CBIC online bid submission system is primitive, cumbersome and has been fraught with problems resulting in excessive data input time, loss of submitted data, frequent times when the system was non-operational and inaccessible, and hundreds of hours of staff time that have been lost. Many of the fields on Forms A and B display as individual screens on suppliers' computers. Repetitive information cannot be copied into subsequent screens and instead must be manually entered--over and over again for suppliers with multiple bids in multiple CBAs. Even more significant is the unreliability of the system and the inability to predict when system issues might arise.

"2. Suppliers continue to receive critical information and clarifications after the 60 day period online bidding period began, rather than having all necessary information published before the bidding window opened. Moreover, not all of the critical questions from bidding suppliers have been adequately answered. The CBIC is providing verbal information that is often not supported by the final rule or other official CMS guidance. Further, there is no discernable rationale for the questions that get addressed via updates to the CBIC FAQs and those that are given only a verbal or email response. We are sure you can appreciate the importance of ensuring that all suppliers have the same information in formulating their bids.

"3. Suppliers are receiving conflicting answers and guidance through emails and conference calls that have created confusion. Our members have received incorrect responses to a variety of questions including straightforward issues such as how the transition rules apply. Other CBIC responses have limited or no utility because the answers do not address the question posed by the supplier. Again, because of the lack of reliable written guidance there is no transparency."

The letter concluded that "significant unacceptable problems continue to arise on a daily basis that threaten the integrity of the bidding process and could diminish the overall competitive goals of the program."

To read the deadline extension notice in full, visit the CBIC Web site at www.dmecompetitivebid.com.