The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has completed the bid evaluation process and announced the single payment amounts for the first round of the Medicare durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) Competitive Bidding Program. The Competitive Bidding Program will offer beneficiaries in the designated Competitive Bidding Areas (CBAs) access to quality DMEPOS products and services with lower out-of-pocket costs. Under the program, the single payment amount will become the Medicare allowed payment amount for the competitive bidding items for beneficiaries who reside in the CBAs. Consistent with current CMS practice, Medicare will pay contract suppliers 80 percent of the single payment amount for each competitively bid item. The beneficiaries will be responsible for the remaining 20 percent of the single payment amount.

As a result of the competitive bidding process, the amounts that Medicare will pay for the ten product categories included in round one of the DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program overall average 26 percent less than Medicare’s previous payment amounts. Savings for beneficiary out-of-pocket cost and Medicare range from 14 percent on negative pressure wound therapy devices and accessories up to as much as 43 percent on mail-order diabetic supplies. Beneficiaries in these CBAs will begin seeing savings on July 1, 2008.

The table below indicates the abbreviations used on the single payment amount tables.

Abbreviations	CBA Full Names
Riverside, CA	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario-CA
Miami, FL	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach-FL
Orlando, FL	Orlando-Kissimmee-FL
Cleveland, OH	Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor-OH
Kansas City, MO-KS	Kansas City-MO-KS
Charlotte, NC-SC	Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord-NC-SC
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	Cincinnati-Middleton-OH-KY-IN
Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh-PA
Dallas, TX	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington-TX
San Juan, PR	San Juan-Caquas-Guaynabo-PR

The single payment amount files can be downloaded individually by product category or you may download one single file for all product categories.