LAS VEGAS – At their recent meeting at Medtrade Spring in Las Vegas, AAHomecare’s Executive Committee approved plans to go forward with a project to examine electronic prescription (e-prescribing) platforms and to help promote adoption and acceptance of e-prescribing within the home medical equipment community.

“It’s time for the HME community to move away from the fax machine and individual paper prescriptions and fully embrace e-prescribing,” declared Steve Ackerman, AAHomecare chairman and president of Spectrum Medical. “Companies that invest in e-prescribing will be able to fill orders more efficiently to the benefit of patients and caregivers, while also reducing documentation errors and audits.

“At Spectrum Medical, we are constantly trying to reduce the number of ‘touches’ involved in an order while still maintaining regulatory compliance,” added Ackerman.  “This should be a goal for all HME suppliers.”

AAHomecare staff and leaders will study leading e-prescribing platforms in terms of their suitability for the HME sector with the end goal of recommending the best solutions to its membership and the industry at large.  AAHomecare will subsequently work with companies supplying these platforms to provide additional guidance related to e-prescribing for HME, and will also promote the industry’s utilization of this technology.

“The healthcare field is rapidly moving towards increased usage of electronic communications and record keeping, and HME suppliers need to keep up,” noted Ackerman. “While our companies will always rely on dedicated professionals to make sure that our patients are receiving a high standard of care, we also need to automate processes wherever it makes sense to do so.”

CMS Extends Low Volume Appeals Deadline

WASHINGTON, DC – CMS will be accepting expression of interest for low volume appeals from April 12- June 8, 2018 for all NPIs.  This submission extension is for all NPIs, and an EOI must be submitted for each NPI. LVA is only offered to appellants that have less than 500 appeals sitting at OMHA and/or Medicare Appeals Council as of November 3, 2017, and each appeal must have a total billed amount of $9,000 or less. More information can be found here.

CMS Removes Items from Prior Authorization Master List

WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, CMS announced the removal of the following items from the prior authorization Master List:

• E0260 (hospital bed semi-electric)
• E0601 (CPAP)
• E1390 (oxygen concentrator)
• K0004 (wheelchair)

CMS is required to annually adjust the Payment Threshold for inflation. The Payment Threshold is $1,018 or greater, or an average monthly rental of $102 or greater.  The four items above did not meet the Payment Threshold. You can find the announcement here.