ALEXANDRIA, VA—The American Board for Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics and Pedorthics, Inc., (ABC) Facility Accreditation department tested its mettle with an unprecedented influx of applications and surveys due to the mandatory accreditation imposed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for post-mastectomy, pedorthic and durable medical equipment. This was an enormous undertaking but with the help of all ABC staff members, each facility that applied by the deadline received a decision by October 1. As part of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, CMS implemented standards of patient care and fraud protection over the entire Durable Medical Equipment Orthotics, Prosthetics and Pedorthics (DMEPOS) market. An essential component of the Act’s standards requires some Medicare suppliers to adhere to mandatory facility accreditation. Over the past nine months ABC processed 2,676 applications and surveyed 2,713 facilities in order to get accreditation decisions out to all of the facilities who applied by the January 31 application deadline. This represents an average of over 300 facilities per month.
“We met the accreditation deadline head on,” said Cathy Carter, ABC’s Executive Director. “This deadline tested our surveyors, staff and volunteers, but we were overwhelmingly successful in this undertaking.”
In December 2007 CMS announced that post-mastectomy and durable medical equipment patient care facilities were on the list of those facilities not exempt from the mandatory accreditation requirement set in place by Medicare. Pedorthic facilities were added to the list in December 2008. The CMS mandatory accreditation deadline for all post-mastectomy, durable medical equipment and pedorthic facilities was September 30, 2009. Any of these facilities providing patient care services must have been accredited by this date in order to continue to bill Medicare.
As CMS contemplates announcing another group of facilities requiring mandatory accreditation, the ABC staff is well prepared to once again meet the challenge.