A new website has been launched to help durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers prepare for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Round 2021 of the durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) Competitive Bidding Program (CBP). The American Association for Homecare, the Council for Quality Respiratory Care, VGM & Associates, and the Healthcare Nutrition Council collaborated on development of the website.
The site will also serve as a platform for webinars and events designed to educate prospective bidders about the process.
CMS announced in March that 16 off-the-shelf (OTS) spinal orthosis Healthcare Common Procedure Coding Systems (HCPCS) codes and seven OTS knee orthosis codes will be included in the CBP for 2021.
The DMEPOS CBP was mandated by Congress through the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). The statute requires that Medicare replace the current fee schedule payment methodology for selected DMEPOS items with a competitive bid process. Contracts are awarded to the Medicare suppliers who offer the best price and meet applicable quality and financial standards. The competitive bidding rates will then be used by CMS to set the rates in the non-competitive bidding areas in the rest of the country.
