CMS Admits New Surety Bond and Accreditation Requirement for Home Medical Equipment Suppliers Creating Patient Acc...(es said Wayne Stanfield president Natio...),Health

"Durable medical equipment (DME) is a small player in Medicare, comprising less than 1.7% of CMS' estimated $460 billion Medicare costs each year. If home medical equipment was such a wildly profitable industry, suppliers could afford to meet these costly albeit misguided requirements," noted Bob Sherman, outgoing President of the Big Sky Association of Medical Equipment Suppliers representing Montana and Idaho suppliers.

Mandated by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the surety bond requirement, which became effective October 2, 2009 requires durable medical equipment suppliers to maintain a surety bond of $50,000. If a supplier has multiple locations, he must have a surety bond for each store. CMS alleges this new rule was designed to combat fraudulent Medicare payments to phony supplier companies.

The new accreditation requirement, which was part of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, requires home medical equipment suppliers to become accredited to meet the Medicare's quality and business standards. Accreditation is granted by independent organizations and initially costs suppliers about $25,000 and thereafter thousands of dollars in renewal costs every three years. Instead of helping Medicare beneficiaries continue to get high-quality products and services and prevent fraud, as CMS alleged, the accreditation/surety bond requirement is causing interruption in patient care.

"Attacking the home medical equipment industry through onerous policies and blaming suppliers for the fraud and abuse in the system only harms patients and makes CMS look like it's not doing its job. More than 55,000 independent home medical equipment suppliers in this country make up over 95% of the industry's suppliers. The DME industry is already highly regulated by FDA, DOT, and State Pharmacy Boards," added Stanfield. "We abhor any fraud and abuse,
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