Group aims to demystify PWC rule

PITTSBURGH - At an advanced seminar slated for Oct. 25, the Pennsylvania Association of Medical Suppliers plans to give providers "the next best thing to a template" for the new documentation requirements for power mobility devices. PAMS plans to end its one-day seminar with a review of sample documentation and a discussion of whether it would pass muster in a post-payment audit. The discussion will include feedback from Dr. Paul Hughes, the medical director for regions A and B. "We want suppliers to leave knowing what they have to get," said Georgie Blackburn, president of PAMS and compliance director at the Tarentum, Pa.-based Blackburn's. "It's the next best thing to a template." The seminar, which will take place at the Marriott North in Pittsburgh, follows up a more general seminar in February that attracted nearly 200 physicians and clinicians. The industry has been looking to CMS to clarify its documentation requirements ever since the agency released its interim final rule a year ago. The rule, finalized in June, requires face-to-face exams and replaces CMNs with physician prescriptions and medical records. Earlier this year, NCART sent the medical directors sample documentation and asked them for feedback. The organization got nothing "substantive" back, said Executive Director Sharon Hildebrandt. As a result, PAMS's seminar could offer providers and clinicians with the first glimpse of what information CMS expects them to have on file in the event of a post-payment audit, organizers said. The seminar also features an overview of CMS's power mobility policy by Hughes and presentations by Dr. Mark Schmeler, a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh, and Chris Chovan, the director of clinical services at Rehab Mobility Specialists.