Altmire, Hall Call for Release of Bidder Names

WASHINGTON — Reps. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., and Ralph Hall, R-Texas, are circulating a sign-on letter to colleagues asking CMS to release the list of providers whose bids were used to calculate single payment amounts in the Round 1 rebid of competitive bidding. They want the missing names by Aug. 13.

The single payment amount is the median of the winning bids per individual item within each product category included in the bid. While CMS announced the rates resulting from the rebid on July 1 — with cuts across all product categories averaging 32 percent — the agency has said it won't release the bid winners until September, after all contracts have been accepted.

But that's too late to make sure the rates are legit, say industry advocates pushing to show Congress that the bidding program is still flawed. And besides, that list won't tell the whole story.

The names of those whose bids went into creation of the new payment rates "is critical to understanding where the proposed 32 percent average savings came from and if the lowest bidders were actually licensed, local and financially sound," according to officials at the Accredited Medical Equipment Providers of America.

"We have been asking for this as an industry for the month since the scores were released," said Barry Johnson, AMEPA executive board member and president of the Texas Alliance of Home Care Services, "but having Congress call for this information is the only way it may be released while it can be useful.

"CMS planned to release the awardees list in September, but that does not reveal who created the low rates. That list will only reveal those who have accepted contracts, not those who were offered contracts," said Johnson.

"A September release could also become an October release, because they delayed the announcement of rates a month when they were eventually released in July instead of June," Johnson continued. "If CMS waits until October to release the names of those who accepted contracts, the industry will only have a few days to respond before Congress goes on recess until after the general election."

A legislative alert about the sign-on letter from the American Association for Homecare noted that in the initial Round 1 in 2008, "a significant number of providers who were awarded contracts could not deliver services commensurate with their bids."