Provider agreement assignment

Definition

Whether a Medicare agreement passes to the buyer, which depends on what the seller is.

Why It Matters

The trade splits and the split decides the deal. A certified clinic or rehabilitation agency holds a provider agreement, and on a change of ownership that agreement is automatically assigned to the new owner, carrying every condition it was issued under including any existing plan of correction. A therapist group in private practice is a supplier and holds no such agreement, so a change of ownership that also changes the tax identification number requires a new enrollment application from the new owner. Structure matters too. For a certified clinic, merging the provider corporation into another one is a change of ownership and a transfer of its stock is not, while a private practice reports any change in its ownership or control within thirty days.