Today, January 30, 2012, marks the official opening of the bid window for Round 2 of Competitive Bidding. Suppliers who wish to compete in Round 2 and/or the national mail-order competition for diabetic supplies may now log into DBidS (CMS electronic online bidding system) and place their bids. A reference guide to assist you in placing your bid is available here.

Now that the bid window has opened, suppliers who wish to submit a bid must be mindful of the following critical deadlines:

1. If you have not already done so, you only have 10 days left to register your authorized official (AO), backup authorized official (BAO), and any end users (EUs) who will be submitting bid information on your behalf. Users must register through CMS’ IACS system for a DBidS user ID and password. The registration window will close at 9pm EST on February 9, 2012. If your AO has not completed the registration process by this date, you will not be able to bid.
2. In order to be considered, your final bid must be in the DBidS system before 9pm EST on March 30, 2012, at which time the bid window will close.
3. All required financial documentation for your bid must be receivedby the CBIC in hardcopy form no later than March 30, 2012.
4. February 29, 2012 is the covered document review date (CDRD). While you technically have until March 30^th for the CBIC to receive required financial documents, if you would like to have your documentation reviewed for missing information, your packet must be received by the CBIC by February 29, 2012.  Suppliers whose hardcopy documentation is received by 11:59pm EST on Feb. 29th will be notified of any missing financial documents within 90 days of the CDRD and given 10 additional days to submit the missing information.

Look for more details on what types of financial documents the CBIC will be looking for and how your documentation must be submitted in the upcoming February 2012 issue of Vista Notes.

On August 17, 2009, CMS opened the registration window for competitive bidding. Providers who wish to place a bid will need to register with CMS’ Individuals Authorized Access Computer Services (IACS) system.  To register, please visit www.dmecompetitviebid.com, click on the Suppliers tab and then select Registration.

When registering, providers must appoint one authorized official (AO) and are encouraged to appoint one back-up authorized official (BAO) to manage their account. Both the AO and BAO must be listed as an AO on the provider’s CMS-855S enrollment form. AOs should register no later than September 14, 2009 and BAOs should register no later than October 9, 2009.

Any additional registrants beyond the provider’s AO and BAO are known as end users (EUs).  EUs have limited capabilities, such as filling out electronic bid forms, and may register until the close of the registration window on November 4, 2009 at 9:00pm EST. After this time, AOs may update company information, but no additional registrants will be accepted.

Prior to registration, it’s important that providers ensure their information is up-to-date and on file with the NSC and SSA. Information entered into IACS will be compared against information in the NSC (physical address, supplier number) and SSA (legal name, DOB, SSN) databases and must match exactly.

In most cases, the NSC is allotted up to 45-days to process all change of information (COI) requests. Per CMS, providers must wait 5 additional days after receiving confirmation from the NSC that their COI has been processed to update their information in the IACS system. However, the NSC has recently agreed to allow expedited faxed processing of sections 6 and 15 of the CMS-855S, when used to update AO information only. If you are only updating sections 6 and 15 of the 855S form, fax it to: 803.387.2407. For all other updates, the form must still be sent via standard postal mail.

For complete details on the registration process, bid forms, documentation requirements and bid rules, we invite you to attend Andrea Stark’s “Competitive Bidding: What to Expect this Time Around” webinar on August 27, 2009 at 2:00pm EST. You may register for the event or purchase a digital recording via the Seminars/Webinars page of this website.