President Obama recently signed into law the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, which establishes a 2.2% update to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) payment rates, retroactive from June 1 through November 30, 2010. In light of this law, the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) is offering Medicare-enrolled providers who are nonparticipating providers (a provider that receives payment from patients) the opportunity to become a participating provider (a provider that receives payments directly from Medicare). Medicare-enrolled speech-language pathologists and audiologists that chose to be a nonparticipating provider can become a participating provider by filling out the Medicare Participating Physician or Supplier Agreement (CMS-460 form [PDF]) and sending the form to their Medicare contractor. The CMS-460 form can be found on the CMS Web site [PDF]. The change in participation status will apply to claims submitted after the CMS-460 form is processed.
This opportunity will be available through July 16, 2010. If you have any questions, contact Kate Romanow, ASHA's director of health care regulatory advocacy, at kromanow@asha.org or at 800-498-2071, ext. 5671.