Physicians re-enrolling in or reporting changes to Medicare lately understandably might feel that one inadvertent false move could have catastrophic results.

That's because the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has put even stricter rules on how long physicians and others have to report on certain practice-related changes -- with failure to comply possibly resulting in a year or two of banishment from the program.

The idea behind these more stringent rules, a tactic CMS has eyed for a long time, is to stop fraud before it starts. CMS has said specifically that it wants to catch fraud in "high vulnerability" areas such as major cities. It also wants to crack down on fraud in durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies, referred to as DMEPOS.

But physicians who have nothing to do with fraud and for whom there would be no reason to be under suspicion -- in other words, the vast majority of doctors -- are now paying the price. To catch a few bad apples, CMS is targeting everyone.

Thanks to the 2008 implementation of the National Provider Identifier, many physicians still are dealing with late and underpaid Medicare checks because of glitches in their re-enrollment.

And now, there are these additional new rules when it comes to Medicare re-enrollment. If a physician's practice has changed location, or ownership and control, or if the doctor has had an adverse legal action, then there are only 30 days, down from 90, to tell CMS. Otherwise, the physician risks losing billing privileges for a year, possibly up to two years, after a Medicare contractor finds out a change has occurred.

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