Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert

DME Changes Could Make Life Easier

Some of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' proposed changes to DME paperwork and requirements could be a real boost to your office's efficiency. In particular, CMS proposes to:

  •  Do away with the Certificates of Medical Necessity that physicians currently must sign to authorize hospital beds and support surfaces.

  •  Allow physicians to use a signature-and-date stamp on the certificate for home oxygen instead of signing them by hand.

  •  Remove the requirement to list the name and address of the provider who tested a patient's blood oxygen levels on the oxygen certificate.

  •  Do away with the requirement that patients in power wheelchairs must be "bed- or chair-confined." Instead, physicians will analyze whether patients have a mobility impairment that prevents them from performing one or more activities of daily living at home, as well as the ability to use a wheelchair.

  •   Expand codes for power wheelchairs and scooters from five to 49 codes to facilitate picking the correct code for a particular wheelchair.
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