Supplier, not provider

Definition

Why nothing certified passes to the buyer, and why no survey follows the sale.

Why It Matters

The federal rules name every entity that may hold a Medicare provider agreement, and freestanding urgent care is not among them: hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospices, critical access hospitals and a short list of others. A center is therefore a supplier, so there is no agreement to assign, no certification survey to repeat, and no plan of correction to inherit. What there is instead is an enrollment: a change of ownership that changes the tax identification number requires a new application from the new owner, and the billing number itself may not be sold. A national provider identifier is a different matter, since it attaches to the entity and survives while the entity does.