Medicare Certification

On April 10, 2007 the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) received guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Region VI office in Dallas, TX that emphasized the expectation that OSDH would abide by the workload priorities established in the CMS Mission + Priority Document that outlines the terms of the contract between CMS and OSDH for Medicare certification activity in Oklahoma. OSDH was reminded that initial Medicare surveys are categorized as Tier IV workload and therefore, have the lowest priority of all certification work. OSDH was directed to not conduct initial Medicare surveys unless and until all higher priority work has been completed or can be predicted to be complete by the end of the home health providers and new alternate administrative delivery site locations for hospice providers are also considered Tier IV workload. Copies of related written correspondence between the CMS Region VI
office and OSDH are linked here for information purposes.