"The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid funding have proposed a rule to rent “routinely purchased” DME items falling under the three-year minimum lifetime requirement and that have allowables of more than $150.
Under the proposed rule, Medicare would only purchase an item outright if its statistics show that the agency purchased the item 75 percent or more of the time during the period of July 1986 through June 1987. If not, those items would be reimbursed on a 13-month capped rental basis.
“We expect that the overall impact of reaffirming the definition of routinely purchased DME and our proposal for classifying certain expensive items as cap rental would be a decrease in expenditures because payment on a 13-month capped rental basis rather than a lump sum purchase basis for certain, very expensive items would lower total payments for these items and because many beneficiaries would not rent the items for as long as 13 months,” CMS wrote in the text of its proposed rule.
The proposed rule can be read in full at:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CMS-2013-0150-0002
CMS is taking comments on the proposed rule until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 30, and providers are encouraged to provide feedback at the following link: http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=CMS-2013-0150-0002
Instructions and guidelines on how to format comments and submit them can be found here: http://www.regulations.gov/#!faqs;qid=6-2
Under the proposed rule, Medicare would only purchase an item outright if its statistics show that the agency purchased the item 75 percent or more of the time during the period of July 1986 through June 1987. If not, those items would be reimbursed on a 13-month capped rental basis.
“We expect that the overall impact of reaffirming the definition of routinely purchased DME and our proposal for classifying certain expensive items as cap rental would be a decrease in expenditures because payment on a 13-month capped rental basis rather than a lump sum purchase basis for certain, very expensive items would lower total payments for these items and because many beneficiaries would not rent the items for as long as 13 months,” CMS wrote in the text of its proposed rule.
The proposed rule can be read in full at:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CMS-2013-0150-0002
CMS is taking comments on the proposed rule until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 30, and providers are encouraged to provide feedback at the following link: http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=CMS-2013-0150-0002
Instructions and guidelines on how to format comments and submit them can be found here: http://www.regulations.gov/#!faqs;qid=6-2
