On January 28, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the list of physicians and non-physician practitioners who are enrolled in the Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) and are therefore eligible to order and refer under Medicare. However, the list CMS provided is a 13,653-page PDF file, which is slow and difficult to search, even for the most technically savvy users.
To alleviate this problem, oandp.com, in coordination with The O&P EDGE, has launched a free online PECOS search that allows users to look up referring providers by name or NPI, with results returned in seconds. Users can then click on the physician’s NPI number and view that physician’s information on the National Plan & Provider Enumeration System website.
The project started as an automated PECOS lookup that is part of the OPIE Software tools provided by oandp.com. “As we were developing this for OPIE, we realized we could use the same database and search capabilities to open up a public search that would benefit all O&P providers in the United States,” said Paul Prusakowski, CPO, FAAOP, CEO of oandp.com, Gainesville, Florida. “We are excited to be able to provide this free tool that will help O&P practices overcome the additional administrative hurdles associated with PECOS.”
According to oandp.com, the data used in its online search is taken directly from the CMS PDF file and will be updated as often as CMS puts out new versions of its file.
To begin using the search, click the PECOS search button that appears to the right. You can also find this button in the upper-left corner of the oandp.com home page.
