Bad news for providers in the form of a new cost of doing business. Medicare has instituted an application fee as of March 25, 2011. You must submit an initial application fee to the National Supplier Clearinghouse of $5xx. NSC is who processes the 855s DME applications and is now returning any applications that do not have this fee included in the enrollment packet.
If you submitted an initial application prior to March 25 and it is returned/rejected, when you resubmit you must include the application fee. I expect that before long they are going to start charging enrollment/application fees for everyone, we have to pay for the government’s bad habits somehow.
Updated on 1/23/2011:
Here is the payment link for DMEPOS and if you notice they now have an area for Part B services which confirms that there will soon be a charge to enroll in Medicare.
https://pecos.cms.hhs.gov/pecos/feePaymentRequest.do
Here is another very helpful article for anyone completing a 855s or DMEPOS application.