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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
Medicare Secondary Payer experts are pretty unhappy with the plan issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to implement the Strengthening Medicare and Repaying Taxpayers Act, better known as the SMART Act.
In comments submitted to CMS this month, the Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc., the Medicare Advocacy Recovery Coalition and the American Insurance Association joined other groups in asking CMS to rescind its interim final rule for implementing the SMART Act. They want CMS to issue a new rule that would take into account Medicare stakeholders' comments.
The SMART Act aims to ease Medicare Secondary Payer compliance. But as Business Insurance reported in September, experts contend that CMS' implementation strategy doesn't fit the vision that the bill's backers hoped for when it was enacted in January.
Complaints from stakeholders include the fact that a “multifactor authentication process” to identify how much a beneficiary owes to Medicare will be implemented “no later than” Jan. 1, 2016 — much later than they originally hoped.
The also worry that CMS' interim rule extends the time the agency has to respond to requests for reimbursement information, which they say could delay settlement times.
Check out the Dec. 2 issue of Business Insurance for more feedback from industry groups about the new CMS rules, as well as their take on what happens next.