Will the New CRC Contractor Impact Your Business?

Since October 2015, the recovery of Medicare health care payments from both Group (GHP) and Non-Group Health Providers (NGHP) has been managed by CGI Federal. CGI is the first contractor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Commercial Repayment Center (CRC), which collects back from third-party entities provisional payments made by Medicare on behalf of its injured members. However, on February 9th, 2018, management of those recovery services transitions to Performant Financial Group. Entities currently involved in GHP and NGHP/Medicare member cases may want to rethink their MSA opportunities as the new contractor takes up the Medicare "recovery of funds" challenge.

CRC Seeks Refunds of Mistakenly-Made Payments

The purpose of the CRC is to identify and recover primary health care payments made on behalf of injured Medicare members when another entity carries the legal responsibility for those fees. Until 2015, CMS's Benefits Coordination & Recovery Center (BCRC) was responsible for tracking down and collecting these funds. That process became unwieldy, however, because that agency was tasked with collecting from not just third-party entities, but also from the beneficiaries themselves. Wisely, CMS elected to bifurcate the burden and transitioned off the third-party collections responsibility into the newly created CRC.

Since its inception, the CRC has been collecting mistaken payments from both GHP's, the injured member's employer's health care insurance provider, and NGHP's, other entities with the legal responsibility to cover these healthcare costs, including no-fault insurers, liability insurers, and entities that are self-insured.

Effect on Insurers

For many companies, the collection notice came as an unwelcome surprise. Many no-fault and liability cases had been open for years, sometimes decades, and the CRC was now demanding a refund of all Medicare provisional payments made in those cases. Companies scrambled to review their files for Medicare members and to set up systems to identify, respond to, and proactively work to resolve any and all affected open cases. Some companies had to reimburse thousands of dollars to the agency for claims paid years earlier.

MSA Cases Had an Easier Time

For worker's compensation cases, the number of repayment notices was significantly less than those issued in other Medicare-related cases. Since 2001, CMS has been a party to injury cases involving injured members and Worker's Compensation carriers. For both pre- and post-settlement purposes, legal representatives of the insureds and the insurers must consider Medicare's interest regarding future healthcare payments and include a Medicare Set Aside (MSA) agreement in the settlement when future health care coverage is required. Consequently, worker’s compensation entities managing healthcare services through MSA's had no backlog of unreimbursed Medicare payments because they had budgeted for those costs as the case closed. In these cases, the services of the BCRC (and now the CRC) are unnecessary; Medicare's interest had been resolved before the case fully resolved.

Learning from the WC Example

The incoming CRC agent offers a heads-up opportunity for any entity dealing with Medicare members in any sort of injury case, regardless of whether it is based on a liability, no-fault, or self-insured claim. In 2017, CMS announced new set-aside procedures for NGHP's (Liability Insurance injury claims and No-Fault injury claims) that recommend establishing an MSA in the originating case. The new procedures may be enforceable as early as July 2018. Although that announcement indicated that the Worker’s Compensation Recovery Center (WCRC) would be reviewing the cases, it may eventually turn out that the new CRC contractor will assume those obligations. No matter who the overseer turns out to be, a best business practice mindset would suggest that entities that may be held accountable for future repayment of relevant Medicare healthcare costs should begin developing their MSA contacts and procedures sooner rather than later.

Certainly, looking at Performant's history and intentions, the new CRC contractor intends to pursue any entity that may owe reimbursement funds to CMS; in its announcement about the new contract, Performant noted its intent to staff the project with more than 250 employees dedicated to the Medicare cause. And the company has significant experience collecting funds for the government; it is also a Private Collection Agent (PCA) for the U.S. Treasury Department and a Recovery Audit Contractor for Regions 1 and 5. While Performant will not be the recovery agent for WC cases (that contract went to Capital Bridge LLC), the anticipated increase in MSA review volume suggests that it may assume some of those obligations in the future.

Launching the New CRC Contract

Two webinars hosted by CMS informed the Medicare healthcare community of the process by which the transition will occur:

On February 9, CGI will cease its work as the CRC contractor and on February 12th Performant takes the helm of the agency. The 8th and 9th will be "dark" as CGI transitions its entire CRC library over to Performant. (Note, Performant requests that no entity in any case submit duplicate materials; it will have the entire case file in its control once the transition is complete.)
Both Performant and CMS assert that there will be no changes to existing processes or procedures because of the change of contractor. All entities with Medicare involvement are encouraged to continue with business-as-usual.
The contact information for the new CRC contractor is:

Medicare Commercial Repayment Center – NGHP, P.O. Box 269003

Oklahoma City, OK 73216

Fax: (844) 315-7627 (new number)

Phone: (855) 798-2627 (maintained as the current CRC Call Center phone number)

8:00 AM – 8:00 PM ET

Looking Forward

The events of 2017 (new LMSA and NFMSA rules and two new contractors) will certainly trigger ancillary changes to MSA and CMS procedures in 2018. At CompExMSA, we will continue to seek out answers to your MSA questions and look forward to assisting both existing and new clients with their MSA practices, processes and needs.

Looking Ahead to 2018

On October 1, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was scheduled to stop paying for health care services that should, instead, be covered by parties deemed responsible for those damages pursuant to liability and no-fault insurance cases. In early 2017, the agency had announced that Medicare-beneficiary claimants in both liability and no-fault legal cases should consider adding a Medicare Set Aside account term to their settlement negotiations, to ensure adequate protection for Medicare if/when those injuries require long-term care services. At the same time, CMS asserted that it would establish two new processes for Liability Medicare Set-Asides (LMSA's) and No-Fault Medicare Set-Asides (NFMSA's), each of which would trigger use of a new code - N723 for LMSA cases, and N724 for NFMSA's - when the agency rejects requests for payment due to the existence of the alternative payor funding. Now that the October 1 date has passed, what has changed, if anything, in the MSA administration world, as it relates to LMSA's and NFMSA's? Let's just say it's been a bumpy Autumn.

New Contractor; New Challenges

The addition of LMSA's and NFMSA's to the already busy CMS reimbursement system has been made more challenging by the September 1, 2017, entry into that system of a new Workers’ Compensation Review Contractor (WCRC), Capital Bridges, LLC. The contract title notwithstanding, the new administrative entity will be responsible for managing all of the LMSA and NFMSA cases, as well as the Workers’ Compensation cases already on its agenda.

Under optimal circumstances, a new contractor in such a complex field will face many challenges with which it may have little or no experience. In this case, unexpected events have delayed the commencement of the contract, which has delayed any forward movement on the LMSA and NFMSA front as well:

Shortly after CMS awarded the WCRC contract, two other corporate candidates filed protests with CMS about that appointment. Arch Systems Inc. and KEN Consulting, Inc. each filed a complaint with CMS protesting the award to Capitol Bridge, which caused a stop-work order preventing Capitol from beginning work. It was only this past week, on December 13, that the General Accounting Office (GAO) denied the protests, thereby allowing Capitol to (finally) get to work on its reviews of the Workers Compensation cases.
Despite promises contained within a September 19, 2017, article to offer guidance and support for LMSA and NFMSA claimants, on October 3, 2017, CMS rescinded those comments. The September 19 article addressed how health care providers should manage those cases where their patients have a WCMSA, LMSA, or NFMSA. Despite the gap, CMS has not offered any guidance on the subject after the October 3 date.
Further, despite its promises to provide more comprehensive instructions for LMSAs and NFMSAs, as well as its assertion that it will stop paying for care in cases that should have an LMSA or NFMSA, the agency remains quiet about the processes or structure of its potential LMSA and NFMSA policies, leaving claimants, insurers, employers, and settlement agencies in the dark about their next steps.

Prognosticating the Future

So, as Winter 2017 begins, we still don't know what CMS is going to do about the management of LMSA's or NFMSA's. It appears likely that the agency will include both liability and no-fault carriers as alternative payors and reject claims for which those entities have the obligation to pay for healthcare services. It also appears likely that the new WCRC will be the entity that that reviews proposed LMSA's and NFMSA's, although the processes to get the case in front of it aren't yet known. Not surprisingly, our clients are understandably nervous about what the incoming changes at CMS and in the MSA system will mean for them moving forward.

So, here at CompEx MSA, we have determined that our best practices and next steps will be to ensure that our clients continue to receive the best possible service for all their MSA needs. In addition to keeping our clients and customers informed about the ongoing drama at the CMS, we will also continue to evolve our practices to conform to industry changes:

Since WCMSA's are voluntary, we believe that LMSA's and NFMSA's will also be voluntary. Therefore, we will apply WCMSA best practice protocols to incoming cases with an LMSA or NFMSA potential.
As each case comes in, it will be vetted for CMS interests that might trigger the possibility of the development of an MSA, regardless of whether it is a worker’s compensation, liability, or no-fault case.
As always, we will complete an exhaustive medical-legal evaluation of each claim, adding now the possible ramifications of the varying legal obligations that might arise in each party to the case, including insurance policy limits, negligence rules, and applicable statutory and case law.
When necessary or appropriate, we will also evaluate liability or no-fault cases to identify next steps in cases of insufficient funds on the part of the liable parties.

CompEx MSA is Here to Help

As one of Florida's certified minority-owned businesses, CompEx MSA is proud of its reputation for providing high-quality MSA services to both state- and nationally-based customers. We value all our clients equally and are looking forward to serving their MSA needs in future workers’ compensation, liability, or no-fault cases, regardless of how CMS elects to move forward with those processes.