Considering throwing your name into the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) applicant pool? Curious to see what type of coordinated efforts across multiple providers CMS has in mind?

You can now read HHS’ list of 32 inaugural ACOs, all of whom were chosen due to being established partnerships with “experience offering coordinated, patient-centered care, and operating in ACO-like arrangements,” according to a CMS Innovation Center statement.

If you thought Highmark Medicare Services (HMS) was taking over as your new Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) next year, not so fast.

TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, which was set to lose its four-state Southwest jurisdiction to HMS, protested the MAC Jurisdiction H transition to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), leading the GAO to issue a stop work order to HMS on Nov. 28.

What this means for you: If you reside in Jurisdiction 4 or 7 – both set to transition over to HMS – you will continue to bill your current MACs until the GAO issues a ruling on the protest. The GAO must rule by March 1, 2012 at the latest.

CMS continues to update its web pages, this time adding a substantive section to its site for the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program. The new "Data and Reports" page contains EHR attestation registration data, showing how many eligible providers have signed up to attest to meaningful use, and actual EHR incentive payment data, showing who got paid. There are already two very pretty full-color maps showing distribution data for EHR payments and registration, reflecting data through today (Nov. 7, 2011).

CMS has made good on its promise to publish a list of all providers who have received a revalidation letter. The first wave of revalidations was sent out in late September, and consisted of 89,000 providers nationwide. This most recent list includes 105,053 providers, and was uploaded Nov. 17 on the CMS website.

You’ve barely had time to process the new material in the 2012 Physician Fee Schedule final rule, but some of your peers are already blasting CMS for making annual wellness visits (AWVs) tougher to bill. The new component to the AWV is called the health risk assessment (HRA). Problem is, the AWV was already confusing to patients because it’s too restricting, includes no physical exam and is different from what patients and providers are used to as far as a “physical,” one angry caller told CMS during the agency’s latest open door call Nov. 7.