More than 350 people attended the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Home Health, Hospice & DME Open Door Forum either in person or via conference call on Sept. 17. Mobility/rehab-related discussions included the following:

— Federally qualified health centers are required to meet the Sept. 30, 2009, accreditation deadline in order to continue billing Medicare for DME, according to CMS’ Sandra Bastinelli.

— The Sept. 3 transcript of the Special Open Door Forum entitled, “DMEPOS Accreditation: 2008 MIPPA Guidance” is now available by clicking HERE

— CMS is presenting an Oct. 14 “on-site conference that will provide guidance to the DMEPOS suppliers on how to comply with DMEPOS quality standards,” Bastinelli said. “The target audience for this conference” – to be held at CMS’ Baltimore auditorium – “is the non-accredited DMEPOS supplier, because they’re the ones that obviously have to get accredited by Sept. 30, 2009.” To register for this conference, click HERE and click on Upcoming Events.

— CMS’ Joel Kaiser said CMS is “still analyzing” the impact of the Medicare Improvements for Patients & Providers Act (MIPPA) that halted competitive bidding and “still planning for implementation of these provisions. We expect to be able to make public announcements soon regarding implementations of these provisions, but at this point in time, we are still in the planning stages.”

— The new Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (ABN), form R-131, will now be required starting March 31, 2009. Questions regarding the new ABN can be e-mailed to revisedabn_odf@cms.hhs.gov.

— The next Home Health, Hospice & DME Open Door Forum is scheduled for Wed., Oct. 29.