BALTIMORE--Home medical equipment providers seeking concrete answers to questions about national competitive bidding got little help from CMS during an Open Door call for home health, hospice and durable medical equipment providers on Wednesday.

HME providers, particularly those in the 10 MSAs in the first round of bidding, have been wondering when CMS would reveal the bid winners.

But Joel Kaiser, deputy director of DMEPOS policy for CMS, said he had no dates for when that announcement would come.

"We are nearing the end of evaluation of bids submitted under the first round, and we will begin offering contracts associated with those bids in the very near future," he said in an update.

Kaiser also could not give an exact date when the ZIP codes would be released for the 70 MSAs included in round two. "The actual areas will be furnished in the spring of 2008," he said, "so sometime in the next couple of months."

In other tidbits from the call:

--CMS' Sandra Bastinelli urged providers to begin the accreditation process, and noted the agency's posting of proposed revisions to portions of the accreditation quality standards. (See "Accreditation Needs Push, CMS Says" in this issue.)
--Officials said almost 100 percent of the claims CMS is now receiving are coming in with National Provider Identification numbers. The agency reminded providers they should be testing their claims using only the NPI. On May 23, CMS will begin rejecting claims that contain any identifier other than the NPI.
--CMS reiterated its stand on what constitutes "homebound," saying it evaluates claims on an individual basis.

During the teleconference, HME providers weren't the only ones having difficulty getting answers. Callers from the home health and hospice sectors were repeatedly asked to e-mail their questions to someone at CMS for an answer. Some 377 health care providers dialed in to the call.

The next Open Door call will be held on Wednesday, April 2.

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