The highly anticipated Commercial Repayment Center contractor transition from CGI Federal to Performant Recovery was discussed in a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services town hall presentation Thursday. The stated goal: seamless, painless and efficient transition, with zero impact on coordination of benefits and recovery activity.

Jessica M. Wingenroth

Ted Doyle, the project director of the incoming Medicare Secondary Payer CRC, assured the estimated 450-460 listeners that Performant has been working with CMS and CGI Federal over the past 100 days, mastering all processes so that its are prepared to take over seamlessly on Feb. 12.

The CRC “dark days” will occur on Feb. 8-9, during which time ALL current case information will be transitioned from CGI Federal to Performant Recovery. This includes a complete correspondence file, case histories and authorizations.

Both CMS and Performant representatives pleaded with the industry, advising that they should not resend any correspondence. They explained that duplicative documentation or phone calls to confirm receipt of past correspondence will only impede operations.

During the “dark days” transfer of information, the call center will remain open, but calls will be limited to relaying information as it existed at the close of business on Feb. 7. The same is true of the Medicare Secondary Payer Recovery Portal, which will be available for viewing but locked for changes, disallowing new uploads. The MSPRP will unlock and be back online under Performant on Feb. 12.

As of 8 a.m. Feb. 12, the following contact information should be utilized: 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; hours 8 a.m.–8 p.m. Eastern.

Time lines for responses to correspondence will not change despite the “dark days” period. Payments received during the transition period will be processed beginning Feb. 12 but retroactively credited to the date payment was actually received.

During the question-and-answer period, representatives also alluded to the promise of improved communication between the Benefits Coordination & Recovery Center and CRC post-transition — specifically, in coordinating recovery on related cases, thanks to improved communications between the two systems that the contractors use.

The slide presentation will be posted for download sometime this week.

Jessica M. Wingenroth is vice president of claims for Medval. This blog post is republished here with permission.