B. Josh Pettingill
Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the latest edition of their Medicare Set-Aside (MSA) self-administration toolkit. This toolkit is intended to serve as a guidebook or roadmap for how to properly administer a Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside (WCMSA) account. The statistics show that 99% of claimants elect to self-administer their MSA account. The problem with that is 98% of them are probably doing it the wrong way. For a summary of best practices for administration of the WCMSA, you can view one of our older posts here which goes into greater detail. To download the latest edition of the toolkit, please click here.
One key addition to the toolkit is that claimants can now submit their annual attestation forms through the CMS portal. The attestation is the yearly accounting CMS wants to see on how the funds were spent. In years past, these forms had to be sent by snail mail. Unfortunately, most claimants who self-administer have likely never completed the attestation. The electronic option makes it a lot easier to do that now. As a follow-up, CMS will be hosting two separate webinars to highlight this latest feature. For more information, or to register for the webinar, you can visit the CMS website.
An alternative to MSA self-administration is professional administration. Pooled Trust Services is the only group offering MSA administration through a trust solution. With both a professional administrator and corporate trustee, there is no greater protection for the claimant. That way, everyone can have the peace of mind that the claimant’s Medicare benefits will never be disrupted. At minimum, best practices for attorneys handling workers’ compensation claims involving a Medicare Set-Aside account would be to include a hard copy of the toolkit or a link with the electronic version for reference. To learn more about professional administration, visit our website.
