Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Meaningful use and PECOS

I want to forwarn anybody who is still trying to attest to meaningful use that you will not be allowed to register without a PECOS update unless you have updated since March 2011. I have experienced a 90 day nightmare trying to be able to register. I still am not registered and I don't understand why exactly. I hope it isn't going to take another 90 days for my PECOS info to be reviewed because that will take me beyond the Feb 29th deadline to attest. Meanwhile I bill medicare, get paid, order durable medical equipment etc. Not sure why the roadblocks.

I am extremely frustrated. We contacted our REC consultant who is being paid handsomely to assure that we participate in this meaningful use crap. I have done all the work and tried to attest in early October. The consultant apparently doesn't care if I can attest and get paid or not. He just said to send him a copy of my stats and its all good for him. Of course if I don't get registered and attest then I'm just SOL. He'll still apparently get the 5 grand to help me if he has my numbers.

Well...I've decided that he'll get my numbers when I am able to register and succesfully attest. Not a minute before. I have spent hours on the phone. Holding about 10 minutes every time I call someone. I have learned that I should not call it Pecos. I should call it an 855i? Apparently this is all because my checks say Professional Corp instead of P.C.????? I am truely frustrated in the extreme. Apparently I can do nothing but wait for medicare to process whatever it is that needs processing. What a bureaucratic boondoggle. After about 7 calls someone gave me a number to contact a person for our medicare carrier.

Thanks for listening.

Medicare intermediaries and other government drones basically exist for this type of bureaucratic crap. We weren't paid any Medicare billing for over 10 weeks because we changed our address. Finally one of our patients who knew then-Senator Mel Martinez made a few calls -- that's what it took! No one ever had the common courtesy to explain what happened or even apologize.

We all should expect this type of treatment from our beneficent government in the future as the ACA rolls out, no matter who wins in November.

And yeah, I'm a little upset because the Ravens lost.

They should have made that field goal.

That was a terrible way to end our season. Embarrassing.

Guess it's about time to return to my Pooh avatar.

Nancy,
We went through a similar experience about a year and a half ago. We used the same word (nightmare) to describe our PECOS/PTAN/855i process. I have never felt so strongly that a process which could have been fairly simple was made needlessly complex. Further, it is administered by people who have NO clue about what the rules really are. I would offer to help if I had any idea what to do. We did finally complete the process with the help of someone at our Medicare carrier. After finally getting our numbers, we spent a month without any Medicare income because they gave us incorrect information about how to change our electronic billing. We thought many times about contacting our Congressional representatives to complain about the process, but decided it wasn't worth our effort.

And yes, that one hurt today. Donna, you can always change your avatar to a different bird.

Got you beat. I moved my office 1 mile within the same zip code and medicare couldn't find me for about 4 months. No medicare payments during that time. Yes, they're idiots, they don't care, there's no incentive ( negative or positive ) for them to do a good job. Therefore if they keep ratcheting down re-embursement, most able minded physicians will realize they are not worth dealing with and will drop medicare.

nate

Ok...here's a kicker. We are supposed to be working with our REC in order to "get connected and do meaningful use". We went to a seminar and got a consultant who was supposed to help us. This help was provided by a grant to the REC.

This consultant spent one hour at our office and learned our work flow. He gave us a printed copy of some AMA criteria for meaningful use. He looked at the Amazing Charts dashboard. Later we ran a couple of reports and emailed them to him. He was very happy and encouraging. I find out now that he was paid $3500 for this "service".

We recently contacted this consultant as his purpose was to help us get our meaningful use money. We explained the medicare registration problem. He told us that was all okay. All he needs is a hard copy of our 90 day report. Oh and by the way for you to get your money you still need to register and attest with CMS.

I am furious. He got $3500 to come to my office and learn about my software and what we were doing. He got $3500 for about one hour of watching what we do. I got nothing. Can't
even attest or register to attest.

Nancy,
In the interest of your own sanity, I would suggest ignoring these REC people and try to find someone associated with your Medicare carrier who can help you with this.

I have talked to multiple people at NGS our medicare carrier and we resubmitted the whole thing. It took 90 days for them to reject the original. We overnighted the 2nd application after completing everything on line and despite overnighting it to them, it took a week for them to "pick it up from mailbox". We have a receipt that they have it now but there aren't another 90 days left before the deadline. I'd like to break something.

Do you know if the consultant is a representative working for and employed by the REC?
Or is this person from a third party consulting firm, contracted by the REC?
IF the latter option is the case, you should report the incident to the REC.

I think they already know. They don't seem to care. Apparently I will eventually get my number and be able to attest but I'll have to have my reports start all over again and do another 90 days for 2012 if I miss the Feb 29th deadline. They don't care. I'm not giving anything to the consultant. I'm done with him. Can't wait til he comes looking for my reports.

I would suggest that if you are resigned to the fact that you will make 2012 your "Year 1" for MU (and that is not SO bad) then you could just wait until you hear about your latest application.
On the other hand, if you still hope to attest for 2011, you can try this: there likely is a real person at your carrier who is going over your app. What helped us (a bit; it was not a complete solution) was to identify that one person and get their name and contact number. Either you or a staffer then calls every day until they go over the application. When they actually look at it, they should be able to tell you quickly if there is a problem. Left to their own devices, they seem to prefer to wait until day 90 and say, "sorry, you checked the wrong box on page 6 of your 855i. I have to reject it and you have to start a new application since the 90 day period is up". If you can get them to tell you what is wrong on say, day 45, you can make the correction, overnight them the one page, and fix the problem.

The squeaky wheel is the one that gets oiled. Maybe you could start making some real noise at the REC. You should not be treated that way by any consultant.

I found someone at the REC who was going to help me yesterday but never got the call back. She was shocked that the CMS website was "unavailable". She was going to call me when it was available. We got in last night to determine that my application has been submitted for a second time. We overnighted a hard copy after completing it on line two weeks ago. Overnight meant that they picked it up from their mailbox 10 days later. We finally got that receipt. I keep hoping.

Nancy, I hope your persistent faith in the REC pays off. I think the issue is the CMS bureaucracy and you will ultimately need to deal with them directly (frustrating as it is).

It's hard to deal with CMS or the carrier when their website is down..."unavailable" all day long. The REC lady did call back today to report that she was also unable to contact CMS for the entire day. I didn't get to speak with her. I think she will call back tomorrow. My 855i status is again in the submission phase after over two weeks time despite "overnighting" the things they said they needed from us. I did get into the website after closing last night. I need a congressman??? Last time I communicated with my NYS Senator he responsed to my letter with a "Dear Ms." I still haven't gotten over that one. It isn't that I need to be called Dr. It was just so purposefully rude to me as a physician. I've never really been a Ms. Thanks for listening to my troubles. I wish I was celebrating like the rest of you guys here.

I agree about the Ms./Mr. references. I'd prefer to be called by first name "Adam" over "Mr." I'm never one to get all bent out of shape over not using the "Dr." title. In fact many of my pt's call me by 1st name, which I encourage. My father was "Dr. Lauer" or "Doc." I like 1st name basis. But calling me "Mr." is frankly incorrect. Either 1st name or Dr. But don't call me a Ms., Mrs., or Mr., those are all incorrect. That is flat out offensive that your senator can't get that right. If they can't get the small details right, then how are they going to get the big details right?

Yaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.....I was finally able to attest to meaningful use today. I tried for 2011 last October and it took until a week ago to get through the bureaucratic mess that is CMS to straighten out my PECOS # in order to register to attest to MU. I did my 3 months starting in July of 2011 but then once I was able to register they wouldn't allow me to use the 90 day period from 2011. It had to be in the 2012 "reporting period". Fortunately I anticipated the hassle and have been "meaningfully using" AC this year and my reports were ready. What a cluster...thank God it's done.

I have forgotten my password for this userboard and never use the computer that has it remembered anymore....hopefully I can get it from Bert. I am looking forward to Washington in November. I miss being happy with AC. The whole CMS thing was so disappointing/such a hassle, nightmare. Glad its over for this cycle. What happens for Stage 2??

Congrats, Nancy, and welcome back! Why not savor the moment and forget about Stage 2 for awhile...

OK, I feel like an idiot, but what password did you use to get on the board.

The one she forgot.

I guess I finally remembered.... It was buried deep inside and freed when the stress of attesting was over.