Most of your peers are happy with their Medicare contractors, but Part B contractors scored lower than other types, especially for enrollment as a business function, according to the latest 2011 Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey (MCPSS). Overall, the average score for provider performance was 3.77 out of 5.00, or about 75.4%. The results for 2011 have changed little from 2010, according to the executive summary of the survey, which is commissioned annually by CMS.

You have at least a 93% chance of being required to revalidate a physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant by March 23, 2013. Physicians make up the bulk of providers who need to be revalidated as part of CMS’s new enrollment revalidation drive, which affects all providers who enrolled before March 25, 2011. Nearly 52% of these folks are physicians, according to a draft CMS statement-of-work document released May 27. Non-physicians make up the next biggest segment, representing 20.8% of the pie. 

You can expect to see overpayment demands from CMS between now and November for Part B claims processed after April 1, 2011, the agency says. On April 1, CMS implemented a change request (CR 7026) that allowed its Common Working File to accept both Medicare as secondary payer (MSP) data and non-MSP data in claims adjustment lines. In English: Any patient who hasn't met the Medicare deductible, but has Medicare as the secondary payer, was issued coverage and had services paid as if the deductible were met, for claims processed anytime after April 1, 2011, CMS says.

The next time you get a request for records from your carrier or recovery audit contractor (RAC), you would be able to send it electronically under a new CMS pilot program. The Electronic Submission of Medical Documentation (esMD) lets you send any requested record as a PDF document, which typically means you scan or convert the required documents into PDFs. This could reduce the time it takes to meet a records request, although you will probably need to go through your claims clearinghouse to submit information via esMD.

When you attest to having met meaningful use with your EHR, a CMS computer system does a fast, cursory check and then sets the gears in motion to deliver your bonus check, agency officials said during an Aug. 18 open door call. A CMS computer system “almost instantly” calculates attestation results entered on the EHR Incentive Program Registration and Attestation System website, said Travis Broome, an agency official. What’s more, right now there is no real fact-checking going on; as long as the attestation data meets the thresholds, the attestation is successful, he said.