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The wheels may be starting to turn toward competitive bidding. At a Home Health, Hospice and DME Open Door Forum in late March, CMS announced it is preparing for the formation of a DME advisory committee to advise the agency on quality standards, financial standards, data collection strategies and, ultimately, the logistics behind implementation of competitive bidding as required under the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA).
“We're just getting started now,” a CMS official told HomeCare. “The committee … has to be there at the start of the process. I would hope we would have internal decision-making done … by late summer. [But that is] pure speculation.”
MMA creates an Advisory and Oversight Committee to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services on development of standards for DME providers who do business with Medicare. One year after the standards are developed, the agency must then choose one or more accrediting bodies to apply those standards. MMA also requires that providers be accredited to be reimbursed by Medicare — and to participate in competitive bidding. Under MMA, competitive bidding will begin in the nation's top 10 metropolitan statistical areas in 2007.
The committee will advise CMS to ensure the agency has “efficient management services” in place and understands how the interaction among manufacturers, physicians and DME suppliers works to make the implementation of competitive bidding as smooth as possible, the official said.
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