Page 17 - HME Business, April 2018

DON’T PANIC!
ACCREDITATION RENEWAL SEASON IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT IF YOU’VE BEEN STICKING TO THE PLAN.
By Holly J. Wagner
Early in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, our hero Arthur Dent finds himself on a ship hurtling through space, with the earth collapsing behind him. He finds a book with two words on the cover: DON’T PANIC!
In the DME pharmacy world, you are Arthur and your accreditation organization (AO) is your guide to the accreditation galaxy. And their message for what is expected to be a very busy renewal year is the same: Don’t Panic.
That’s because accreditation is meant to introduce and maintain what are basically industry best practices within a pharmacy and/
or DME business. If you are already accredited, chances are you are already doing a lot of them and accreditation is more about verifying standards than doing anything new.
“It [accreditation] standardizes their policies. If they follow the stan- dards as a blueprint for their business, it makes them better able to run their businesses. We have universal standards that apply across all the modalities,” says Sandra Canally, RN, president of deemed Medicare accrediting organization The Compliance Team.
A small pharmacy that has been keeping up with standards since
its last accreditation should expect to spend about an hour a month sticking to them, says Timothy Safley, director of DME Pharmacy & Sleep at ACHC. “That’s all that’s invested. It’s very little time and investment to keep up with the quality standards.... It’s best practices, but the reality is that it makes sure you are meeting the Medicare standards.”
That’s not to say there is no time and effort involved, especially if you need to play catch-up, but if you’ve been maintaining standards since your last accreditation, renewal should be much smoother. If you’ve fallen behind, AOs have checklists and compliance guides to help you
hme-business.com
get on track, and in the worst case they can help you submit a compli- ance action plan to get to renewal.
PLAN AND SCHEDULE AHEAD
When in 2009 Medicare began requiring that HME providers get accreditation from the deemed AOs to bill for DMEPOS items, it triggered a surge that repeats itself every three years with renewals. The AOs are staffing up to meet demand, but they still advise booking as soon as you’re ready, to get on the inspection schedule as early as possible.
“These pharmacies need to apply early. You certainly don’t want your accreditation to lapse,” Safley says.
Scheduling early is important not only because it is busy year in the renewal cycle, but because AOs schedule site visits regionally, so the surveyors can visit many clients in a given area on one trip. That takes a fair bit of planning for the AO.
“It takes up to 90 days, depending on how ready you are and how quickly we get out there,” says Wendy Miller, BOC chief credentialing
“Have a relationship with your accreditor. Ask if there is anything you can do that you might have might missed. And what tools are available.”
— Timothy Safley, ACHC
DME Pharmacy | April 2018 Rx 9