Obtaining & Maintaining Your DMEPOS Company’s PTAN & Accreditation

By: Michael Silverman

Becoming a DMEPOS provider enrolled with Medicare is no small feat or undertaking. Whether you’ve started the business from ‘scratch’ or purchased an existing entity, you need to ensure that investment is protected through active and ongoing compliance measures.

To that end, I recently hosted a webinar with Matthew Gruskin, Credentialing Director at Board of Certification (“BOC”) to discuss some of the steps necessary to do so.  A copy of our presentation is available here.

Becoming “accredited” is a necessary precursor to being a Medicare Part B DMEPOS provider, and BOC is one of only nine Medicare approved DMEPOS accreditation organizations. Whether it’s through BOC or one of the other eight Medicare approved accreditation organizations, a DMEPOS business’s initial receipt of accreditation is really just a ‘first step’, insofar as if that accreditation is not maintained a DMEPOS supplier will lose their Medicare Part B billing privileges. Medicare’s DMEPOS Supplier Standard #22 specifically requires all enrolled providers to be accredited to receive and retain billing privileges.

A DMEPOS supplier must continue to abide by both Medicare’s DMEPOS Supplier Standards (which the National Supplier Clearinghouse is tasked with enforcing) and its Quality Standards (which accreditation organizations gauge compliance by) in order to stay in its good graces. Accreditation organizations conduct unannounced on-site surveys at least every three years and suppliers must also revalidate their enrollment with Medicare’s National Supplier Clearinghouse every three years, which results in an unannounced Medicare on-site visit.Continue reading