Change Management Process -- Electronic Change Information

70 - Change Management Process -- Electronic Change Information Management Portal (ECHIMP) (Rev. 100, Issued: 06-23-16; Effective: 07-05-16; Implementation: 07-05-2016) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) Division of Change Management (DCM) is responsible for the coordination and distribution of the draft Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) Change Requests (CRs) for Point-of-Contact (POC) Review. To that end, the DCM has developed the Electronic Change Information Management Portal (ECHIMP), a user-friendly, Web-based application to streamline and automate the change management process. In September 2004, the initiators of the CRs began creating and submitting CRs to the DCM via ECHIMP. In the past, the DCM distributed the draft Medicare FFS CRs to only 15 contractor POCs and shared system maintainers (SSMs) for POC review. The SSMs forwarded the CRs to their users for review which increased the time to market the CR and sometimes resulted in the submission of late comments. Therefore, beginning January 3, 2006, the DCM will continue to notify the CMS and SSM POCs of the draft Medicare FFS CRs that are in POC review and also notify all the Medicare FFS contractor POCs as well via ECHIMP 2.0. The DCM will implement ECHIMP 2.0 on a voluntary basis for its internal CMS staff. Initiators of CRs may create and submit a CR for POC review using ECHIMP 2.0 beginning January 3, 2006. However, effective February 6, 2006, ECHIMP 2.0 will be implemented on a mandatory basis (i.e., all CRs will be initiated, submitted and reviewed in ECHIMP 2.0). The POCs will continue to receive the POC Review e-mail for CRs initiated and submitted in ECHIMP 1.0 which will contain the CR and the attachments until February 6, 2006. In addition to receiving the POC review e-mail with the CR and the attachments, POCs will also receive the POC review e-mail alert for CRs that are initiated and submitted in ECHIMP 2.0 which will not contain the CR file and the attachments. However, these e-mail alerts will contain a link for the POCs to click to review and submit comments on the CR via ECHIMP 2.0. NOTE: Beginning February 6, 2006, contractors and maintainers should not reply to any e- mails from ECHIMP @cms.hhs.gov nor should they send any e-mail to eChimp@cms.hhs.gov. Effective February 6, 2006, we will not accept any e-mails sent to that address. The notification of the draft Medicare FFS CRs will be distributed via an E-mail from ECHIMP to the CMS, contractor and SSM POCs, which will no longer contain the files and documents associated with the draft CR. Once the POCs receive the e-mail notification from ECHIMP that notifies them that a CR is currently in POC review, they shall log in to ECHIMP via a link that will be provided in the E-mail notification. Once logged in, they shall review the draft CR and provide comments to CMS via ECHIMP by the POC Review Comment due date. To maintain as much efficiency as possible with such a large number of prospective reviewers, each POC may submit only one set of comments on behalf of their contractor or maintainer organization and that submission must be identified as such. If the CR impacts A/B MAC (A), A/B MAC (B), DME MAC and/or A/B MAC (HHH) and it makes more sense to submit the comments separately (to keep the content clear), then two sets of comments from the contractor site or maintainer organization will be acceptable. No response received will be considered a concurrence. NOTE: It is the responsibility of the POCs to notify appropriate staff that a CR has entered POC review and to share the information with them. Each individual who has access to ECHIMP will also have the ability to review, download and print the CR files and share the files, either electronically or hardcopy, with other staff members who do not have ECHIMP access. We believe that expanding the POC review process to all of the Medicare FFS contractors and SSMs will not only decrease the time to market the CRs, but will also increase the quality of the review of the CRs by allowing a wider audience of those potentially impacted by the change the opportunity to comment. We also believe that this expansion to the POC review process will reduce the number of late comments submitted as well as reduce the number of corrected CRs now necessary as a result of uncoordinated and/or untimely POC comments. CMS realizes that expanding the POC review process to all of the Medicare FFS contractors and SSMs could potentially cause a lack of efficiency and an administrative burden if the above- outlined POC review process is not adhered to. Therefore, we will pilot this expanded POC review process for approximately 3 months effective February 6, 2006. At the conclusion of the 3 months, we will evaluate the pilot and adjust the POC review process, if necessary. Change Request Correction and Rescind Process Currently, the CR corrections and rescind process is a manual process, which is completed via email. CMS is automating the CR correction and rescind process utilizing the ECHIMP system. This CR implements the following processes: • CMS will begin distributing Medicare FFS CRs that are being corrected or rescinded for review via a notification from ECHIMP to the current POC Review recipients. These notifications will specify the type of review to be performed in the subject line of the email (i.e., POC, Correction or Rescind Review). All current POC Review recipients will receive the notifications whether they are impacted on the CR or not. The notifications will specify which Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and Shared System Maintainers (SSMs) are impacted. • Impacted SSMs will review and comment on CRs during the CR's Correction or Rescind Review Period. • Impacted SSMs will update their estimates as a result of the correction or rescind. • Non-impacted SSMs and non-impacted MACs will be able to review and comment on the draft corrected or draft rescinded CRs in ECHIMP, if they so choose. CRs that have been corrected and rescinded prior to this automation will not be updated in ECHIMP. This process will apply to CR corrections and Rescinds initiated on or after July 5, 2016.