Take Santa’s List and Check It Twice!

As you may have noticed, CMS has increased the amount of lien correspondence in the recent past. In addition, the correspondence seems to come in waves and may be related to very old claims that you may consider “closed” in your system. We want to make sure that you are checking your correspondence from CMS twice, even three times, if needed!

In what appears to be an effort to cut down on the amount of outgoing mail, or possibly an attempt at reducing costs, CMS is combining letters for wholly unrelated matters in the same envelope. Because this is not something that CMS has routinely done in the past, many mailrooms and intake staff may not be aware of the need to confirm that the enclosed correspondence is not for multiple, unrelated claims.

The correspondence from CMS includes a note on the first page of the first piece of correspondence that indicates the number of letters enclosed. For example, a letter that includes 2 conditional payment notices will be marked by a note that says “there are 2 letters in this mailing”. We have seen correspondence that notes as many as 8 letters in a single mailing. Though the note is generally in bold, as written here, the type size seems to be 2 points smaller than the text in the rest of the letter and does not include any capitalization or punctuation. Because nothing else distinguishes the note, the smaller type size makes it very easy to overlook and does not give any idea regarding the nature of the additional correspondence enclosed. Unfortunately, missing the additional correspondence can result in missed deadlines, which could have significant consequences.

If you have determined that some of your correspondence may have been lost along the way and would like our assistance in addressing the same, please let us know!