Accreditation: How Software Companies Can Help

• By Nikolay Voutchkov, Melissa Jackson
• Jul 01, 2006

On Aug. 14, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued quality standards for DME providers. The standards, part of the requirements of the Medicare Modernization Act, are vital to the National Competitive Acquisition program, which is slated to go into effect in 2007.

CMS also announced that it is seeking applications from accrediting organizations for Medicare Deemed Status. Once accrediting agencies match their standards to the quality standards issued by CMS, they can apply for Medicare Deemed Status. Once they have deemed status they can accredit providers.

Providers are repeatedly told to prepare ahead of time for accreditation because at some point all providers -- not just those in the 10 MSAs -- will have to be accredited in order to receive Medicare reimbursement.

While accreditation will be a priority for the first 10 MSAs to compete in competitive bidding in 2007, remaining suppliers will be phased in.

How Software Companies Can Help

Many of the HME software companies have tools that can assist providers in meeting the standards of accreditation. Here is what several software companies had to say.

Fastrack

"Accreditation for HME providers is essential today in order to compete effectively in the home care market. From a patient safety standpoint, Fastrack supports accreditation for HME providers specifically in the technology that we utilize and leverage in the development of our software. The ability to accurately track equipment history, maintenance and settings, as well as education for patients and their families is essential to understanding that equipment's efficiency in the administration of various therapies. In order to adequately understand the life performance of a piece of equipment and whether it is safe and effective for patient care, bar coding, wireless inventory tracking and delivery confirmation, providing for real-time information on these pieces of equipment is essential. This is important not only to patient care and safety, but to the health and growth of the business overall."

Spencer Kay, President
Fastrack Healthcare Systems Inc.
255 Executive Drive
Plainview, NY 11803
(800) 520-2325
www.onlyfastrack.com

QS/1

"Accreditation helps you better understand and operate your business more efficiently. To that end, accreditation includes helping HME businesses to better manage their inventory and their accounts receivable. Accreditation will also push HME businesses to utilize the HME software for more than just a billing program to get claims paid. HME businesses will want to automate as many features as possible. To that end, QS/1 upgraded our existing HME POS program. It can handle cash, check, credit and debit card sales and automatically relieve their HME inventory quantities. In addition, we added an integrated Document Imaging Module. For less money than the two online document imaging system will charge you in three to five months, you can purchase our integrated Document Imaging Module. This module allows you to scan documents directly to the carrier, doctor, item patient and order/claim records. QS/1 is planning on addressing three other major areas in 2006 to assist HME businesses with increasing their automation. First is the area of a shipping interface with UPS, FedEx, etc. Second is the need to have integrated general ledger, accounts payable and payroll. The third area will deal with improved automation utilizing bar coding for receiving, deliveries and inventory counts utilizing a PDA or possibly even a tablet PC."

Jay Williams, National Sales Manager
QS/1
P.O. Box 6052
Spartanburg, SC 29304
(864) 253-8600
www.qs1.com

RemitDATA

"Continuing Quality Improvement (CQI) is a big part of the accreditation process. RemitDATA provides tools that allow providers to monitor reimbursement performance and implement a continuous quality improvement process around the reimbursement function. The tools allow not only internal benchmarking, but industry benchmarking as well. Additionally, RemitDATA provides productivity tools that allow for process improvement by reducing the time necessary for following up on denials and processing secondary invoices. All of this taken together empowers a provider to reduce denial rates, reduce total time spent on reimbursement and accelerate cash flow."

Bently C. Goodwin, CEO & Founder
RemitDATA Inc.
516 Tennessee St.
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 767-9830
www.remitdata.com

This article originally appeared in the July 2006 issue of HME Business.