Why is the contract changing from Palmetto GBA to CIGNA Government Services?
In 2003, Congress enacted legislation known as the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003. Under section 911 of the MMA, Congress required CMS to replace the current fiscal intermediary (FI) and carrier contracts with competitively procured contracts that conform to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The legislation required the government to competitively bid all Medicare contracts. The first awards of the full and open MAC competitions were for the Durable Medical Equipment (DME) claims workloads. CMS decided to start the Medicare Contracting Reform initiative with the DME MAC contracts because the workload of the four DMERCs was stable and the risk of any significant program disruption to the provider and beneficiary communities would be minimal.
