OIG releases final report on test strip market share
By HME News Staff
Updated Tue June 13, 2017
WASHINGTON - Suppliers in Medicare's national mail-order program provided 19 types of diabetes test strips to beneficiaries from October through December 2016, according to a new study from the Office of Inspector General. The top two strip types accounted for 53% of the Medicare mail-order market, and the top 10 strip types accounted for 97.5% of the market, the study says. To conduct the study, the OIG sampled 1,210 claims from a total population of 438,872 claims for diabetes test strips. The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) requires the OIG to determine the market shares of the types of diabetes test strips before each round of competitive bidding. MIPPA prohibits CMS from awarding a contract to a supplier of diabetes test strips if the supplier's bid does not cover at least 50%, by volume, of all types of diabetes test strips on the market, known as the “MIPPA 50 percent rule.” This is the third of three reports by the OIG. The agency released the results of a second study in February, and a first study in December.
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