The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a list of all physicians and other healthcare professionals registered in its Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System database.
Providing the listing was part of CMS’s decisions to delay implementation of its PECOS requirement from Jan. 4 to April 5. HME providers must ensure physicians and other referring healthcare professionals such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers, psychologists, and physical therapists are registered in PECOS before the April deadline, or DME claims coming from those referral sources will not be approved by Medicare.
The list of all physicians and other referring professionals is more than 13,500 pages long and contains nearly 800,000 listings, alphabetized by surname. The list will be updated on a monthly basis, and can be downloaded as a PDF file from CMS at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicareProviderSupEnroll/Downloads/OrderingReferringReport.pdf
While providers can keyword search a PDF file by, the immense file is still somewhat unwieldy, according to industry experts.
“Using the search (Ctrl+F) feature, suppliers may look-up the NPIs of referring physicians and verify the correct spelling of their first and last names, as listed in the PECOS database,” writes Andrea Stark, DME Consultant with MiraVista LLC. “The bad news, is that since the file is in a .pdf format, there is no easy way to narrow down, filter, or otherwise sort through the nearly 800,000 records.
“… Also, because of the time it takes contractors to review a physician’s PECOS enrollment application (typically 45-60 days), newly enrolling physicians may not be included in the searchable list until two or even three months after they submit their application,” she added.”
“AAHomecare is concerned that this list is not in a user-friendly format,” the American Association for Homecare said in a public statement. “The Association will continue to reach out to CMS to address critical issues with PECOS.”