Medicare relaunches DME competitive bidding

Washington The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Oct. 21 began accepting bids from accredited durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supply companies in nine metropolitan areas to decide whether they can participate in the Medicare program.

The round one rebid for the DMEPOS competitive bidding program will be open for 60 days. It initially was launched July 1, 2008, but was halted after only two weeks when lawmakers agreed to an 18-month moratorium, citing patient access concerns raised by suppliers.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration reviewed the program and said it would move forward after making several revisions. The nine metropolitan statistical areas involved in round one are: Cincinnati-Middletown; Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor; Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C. and S.C.; Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington; Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan.; Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach; Orlando; Pittsburgh; and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.

Ninety-three percent of all medical equipment suppliers in the country have met Medicare's accreditation requirements, CMS said.

In October, the agency also announced it had made several modifications to the bidding program to help suppliers successfully submit a bid, including:

• An early comprehensive bidder education program to help suppliers understand all aspects of the bid submission and evaluation process.
• A more user-friendly bid submission process that provides a new online system, upgraded instructions and a special process for suppliers to have their financial bid documents reviewed for completeness.
• Enhanced scrutiny of bidders, including up-front licensure verification, accreditation of subcontractors and bidder disclosure of subcontractors.

"We expect that these and other refinements will result in the selection of quality contract suppliers offering a choice of products to beneficiaries at a substantial savings," said Jonathan Blum, director of the CMS Center for Medicare Management.

The bidding program has been staunchly opposed by the American Assn. for Homecare, which represents DMEPOS suppliers. The association said the return of competitive bidding will allow Medicare to contract selectively with a small fraction of equipment suppliers while putting most of them out of business.

The association is pushing a bill introduced Oct. 13 by Rep. Kendrick Meek (D, Fla.) that would repeal the competitive bidding program.