The Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA) reported to the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) that the backlog of pending durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) audit appeals waiting to be assigned to Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) has declined by 51 percent over the past year.
OMHA reported that it is working at full capacity and there were approximately 85,000 DMEPOS appeals pending at the ALJ level as of October 31. OMHA said that the average wait time for an ALJ hearing is still four years, but it believes that should decrease as judges work their way through the backlog.
In 2018 a federal court judge granted a motion for summary judgment requiring OMHA to eliminate the ALJ backlog by 2022.