My previous company helped office based surgery facilities get accredited so that they could bill and collect a facility fee. They also helped negotiate contracts with private payers such as United and Aetna. Last year we started Accreditation Helper to help DME providers get accredited and ultimately our goal is to help them get into the networks of the private payers also.
An interesting new situation is that we are being approached by physican offices that want to get their DME operation accredited. Apparently in the past physicians felt that they could dispense DME products without being accredited, but CMS has now made it clear that anyone wanting to bill Part B for products and services that come under the heading DMEPOS, which stands for Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies must get accredited.
With reimbursement shrinking everywhere I am sure that we will see a large number of orthopedic and podiatric offices wanting to tap into this revenue stream. It could set up a awkward situation for those physicans who formerly referred these patients to a DME provider. Of course the DME provider has a new challenge here also. After nearly forty years in healthcare I shouldn’t be surprised at the the byzantine nature of this sector but here is another example.
July 25, 2008 at 3:50 am |
You may not have heard the accreditation for physicians has been placed on hold per HR6331 last week Further comments from CMS will be coming, but for now not a service a physician needs to worry about.