New Revisions to the Additional Documentation Request (ADR) Process

The ADR rule went into effect Jan. 1, 2019

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has updated its criteria for additional development requests (ADRs). If your ADR “cycle” is less than 1, CMS will round it up to 1.

When a claim is selected for medical review, a medical review ADR is generated, meaning a request is made that medical documentation be submitted to support the reimbursement. In other words, a provider is asked to prove that the service was rendered and that the billing was compliant. Documentation must be received within a specific time frame for review and payment determination.

An ADR may be sent by CGS, Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs), Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs), Supplemental Medical Review Contractors (SMRCs), the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) contractor, etc. When a claim is selected for review or when additional documentation is needed to complete the claim, an ADR letter is generated requesting that documentation and/or medical records be submitted.

The ADR process is essentially a type of prepayment review.

A baseline annual ADR limit is established for each provider based on the number of Medicare claims paid in the previous 12-month period that are associated with the provider’s six-digit CMS Certification Number (CCN) and the provider’s National Provider Identifier (NPI) number. Using the baseline annual ADR limit, an ADR cycle limit is also established.

After three 45-day ADR cycles, CMS will calculate (or recalculate) a provider’s denial rate, which will then be used to identify a provider’s corresponding “adjusted” ADR limit. Auditors may choose to either conduct reviews of a provider based on their adjusted ADR limit (with a shorter lookback period) or their baseline annual ADR limit (with a longer lookback period).

The baseline annual ADR limit is one-half of one percent of the provider’s total number of paid Medicare service types for which the provider had reimbursed Medicare claims.

Effective Jan. 1, 2019, providers whose ADR cycle limit is less than 1, even though their annual ADR limit is greater than 1, will have their ADR cycle limit round up to 1 additional documentation request per 45 days, until their annual ADR limit has been reached.

For example, say Provider ABC billed and was paid for 400 Medicare claims in a previous 12-month period. The provider’s baseline annual ADR limit would be 400 multiplied by 0.005, which is two. The ADR cycle limit would be 2/8, which is less than one. Therefore, Provider ABC’s ADR cycle limit will be set at one additional documentation request per 45 days, until their annual ADR limit, which in this example is two, has been reached. In other words, Provider ABC can receive one additional documentation request for two of the eight ADR cycles, per year.

ADR letters are sent on a 45-day cycle. The baseline annual ADR limit is divided by eight to establish the ADR cycle limit, which is the maximum number of claims that can be included in a single 45-day period. Although auditors may go more than 45 days between record requests, in no case shall they make requests more frequently than every 45 days.

And that is the update on ADRs. Remember, the rule changed Jan. 1, 2019.