HME Business

A week after CMS announced it was notifying contract winners for round one of its competitive bidding program, many providers who did not make the cut are questioning why they did not win contracts.

The American Association for Homecare has reported that it has been contacted by more than 100 providers concerning “irregularities or mistakes” made by the Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor (CBIC) that it says “appear to have triggered improper disqualification of round one bids submitted by durable medical equipment companies.”

Because of that, AAHomecare has requested a meeting with CMS to postpone round one in order to address these problems. READ MORE.

John Skoro, Managing Partner of Texas HME provider XMED Oxygen and Medical Equipment (http://www.xmed4u.com/), who says that CBIC informed his company that its bid was missing financial documentation that he is certain XMED provided. Skoro says that CBIC informed XMED it was missing key financial information from 2004 and 2005.

“From our standpoint, we did everything right,” he says. “We’re confident we sent our documents... Those are the easiest documents to file.”

Beside the fact that financial records were some of the easiest pieces of information to retrieve and provide for its bid package, Skoro notes that it also included the necessary financial information from 2003 and 2006, which was not declared missing by CBIC.

That begs the question “why is only some information missing” and Skoro says he suspects that is because there is “systematic scanning issue” when documents are first received. Given the number of complaints received by AAHomecare, that could be a reasonable conclusion to draw.

More to the point, Skoro said that CBIC didn’t follow the processes it outline when it comes to the missing information. He says that according to a transcript of a June 6, 2007 teleconference, CBIC was supposed to notify XMED (and any other bidder) of an incomplete bid so that they bidder had an opportunity to supply the missing information. READ THE TRANSCRIPT.

Skoros said that it in fact had received similar follow-up during a problem with its Form B entry. It had entered zeros for some categories and their respective units of measure that it did not offer. It was notified that the zeros were causing a problem and that it need to rectify its bid and resend.

For now, all XMED can do is issue a challenge, which Skoro says it has done. Within 30 days, XMED will receive an email regarding CBIC’s conclusion regarding the missing information. Skoro says XMED expects CBIC to come up with the information he is certain he supplied, and that XMED will get a contract. If it does not, Skoro says XMED will consider pursuing an injunction.