Billing number sale prohibition

Definition

The federal rule that a Medicare billing number may not be sold or lent, so an asset buyer enrolls anew.

Why It Matters

The wording leaves no room: a provider or supplier is prohibited from selling its Medicare billing number or privileges to any individual or entity, or allowing another entity to use it. So in an asset purchase the medical half of an optometry practice, the part billed to Medicare instead of to a vision plan, does not arrive with the purchase. The buyer enrolls, and the timing is the cost: retrospective billing reaches back thirty days before the effective date where circumstances precluded enrolling in advance, and CMS may return a change-of-ownership application filed more than ninety days before the anticipated sale. Nothing at a citable standard says what a vision plan does on a change of owner, which is worth asking each plan directly.