This post was also written by Jouya Rastegar.

There seems to be growing awareness that engaging in a “business, trade, or profession,” can easily subject any person or entity to what is known as the Medicare secondary payer (“MSP”) law—a series of provisions in Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, governing the hierarchy of who pays first among applicable insurers. Given its scope and complexity, understanding and complying with the MSP law can be overwhelming. Further, although failure to comply carries obvious risk, conforming to what the law requires may also trigger certain risks of its own.

Amid consensus that the existing situation demands improvement, Congress recently passed the Medicare IVIG Access and Strengthening Medicare and Repaying Taxpayers Act of 2012, commonly referred to as the SMART Act provisions—new legislation signed January 10, 2013 that addresses at least of few of the acute challenges presented under the existing MSP system.

Although it does not change the basic premise that a promise to pay an injured beneficiary is tantamount to a plan of liability insurance that is primary to Medicare, or generally relieve parties from their reporting obligations under section 111 of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 (MMSEA), the Act should give parties that make payments to Medicare beneficiaries at least some opportunity to control the process and the outcome, and alleviate some of the more draconian qualities of the current system.

Among other things, the Act:

  • Requires the agency to make up-to-date conditional payment information available on a website;
  • Requires the agency to provide a process for parties to liability settlements to dispute Medicare’s alleged MSP refund amount;
  • Ensures greater certainty to settling parties, before the settlement, with respect to the total amount Medicare is owed;
  • Requires the agency to establish an appeals process for plans to challenge MSP collections actions;
  • Requires the agency to establish minimum dollar thresholds in certain circumstances, below which refunds to Medicare are not required and payments need not be reported;
  • Requires the agency to establish safe harbors to the MMSEA section 111 reporting obligations for liability insurance and similar types of primary payers;
  • Makes civil money penalties (CMPs) for failure to comply with MMSEA section 111 reporting obligations discretionary rather than mandatory;
  • Alleviates the existing burden to collect and report beneficiary social security numbers or health insurance claim (HIC) numbers as part of the MMSEA section 111 reporting process; and
  • Establishes a three-year statute of limitations for commencing an action against any type of primary payer to recover conditional payments and/or double damages.

Reed Smith’s full analysis of the SMART Act is available here.