ATLANTA — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services flung open the bid window for the Round 1 rebid of the DMEPOS competitive bidding program on Wednesday, but the unsettling health care reform environment was causing some providers to hold back on submitting bids.

According to CMS, all bids must be submitted in DBidS, the CBIC's online bidding system, by 9 p.m. prevailing Eastern Time on Dec. 21. All required hardcopy documents for the bid package must be postmarked by 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 21. Pricing will be released in June 2010, followed by the announcement of bid winners in September. Round 1 implementation is currently scheduled for January 2011.

CMS has also established a Nov. 21 deadline for providers who want to be included in the covered document review process. The agency will notify those who submit their hardcopy financial documents by that date if they are missing any documentation.

During an Open Door Forum Wednesday afternoon, the agency's Joel Kaiser, deputy director of DMEPOS policy, said the DBidS system was "operating smoothly" and that "as of 11 o'clock this morning, we've had a number of bidders that have already completed Form A ... so that's good news."

Other Round 1 providers, however, said they weren't rushing in to bid.

"I see no reason to bid early," said Joel Marx, CEO of Medical Service Co. in Cleveland. "There is nothing to be gained aside from the satisfaction of getting your bid in early and on time. I understand if you get the paperwork in early, they'll tell you if it is complete. Right now, we are still dissecting numbers and waiting to see what happens."

With health reform still in play on Capitol Hill and packages in both the House and the Senate containing provisions that would affect home medical equipment providers, it's tough to put together accurate, reasonable bids, providers said.

"The thing that has me most concerned is that tax on manufacturers," said Georgie Blackburn, vice president of government affairs for Blackburn's Pharmacy in Tarentum, Pa., referring to the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform package proposal to levy a device tax on manufacturers.

With just eight weeks until the bid window closes, providers are in the midst of formulating bids based on the current cost of products, but a tax on manufacturers would likely cause that cost to rise, Blackburn said.

"As a provider bidding in Round 1, that has me concerned. You have to know all your costs before putting a bid out there and hope you can sustain it for three years (the length of a bid contract).

"Manufacturers might incur this huge expense through health care reform, and that skews the bids," she continued. "This will absolutely impact our cost going forward. I don't see how the bid window can be open without health reform being [complete]."

Chris Rice of Diamond Respiratory Care in Riverside, Calif., said he also is waiting, though he wants to meet the Nov. 21 deadline for document review. He, too, questioned the impact of the device tax should it be implemented.

"The better [manufacturers'] pricing, the better our bid," he said. "What is a device tax going to do to those of us bidding down the road?"

Backing the Meek Bill

Even as providers ran numbers and worried about the impact of a medical device tax, they also were campaigning for sponsors for H.R. 3790. Introduced Oct. 13 by Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., the budget-neutral bill calls for a complete repeal of the Medicare DMEPOS bidding program, which was delayed by Congress after a two-week implementation in July 2008. As of press time, the bill had garnered 38 cosponsors.