Associated Press
There are no 33-page change-of-address forms here.
A video made the rounds yesterday, featuring Mitt Romney expressing amazement at his ability to order a sandwich on a touch-screen at a WaWa's in Pennsylvania. Dylan Byers makes the case that the larger context is far less damaging to Romney, and he appears to have a point.
But immediately before Romney's WaWa comments, the Republican shared an interesting anecdote with his Pennsylvania audience.
"I met an optometrist this morning and ... this optometrist wanted to change his billing address. He moved his office from one side of town to the other, same Zip code, same post office. But he wanted to change his address. He got a form from the federal government. This is so he could get reimbursement from the federal government for the services he provides for the poor and seniors.
"The form he gets to change address is 33 pages long -- 33 pages long. He calls someone to ask how to fill it out. He calls someone in government. They tell him what to do. He sends it in. They sent it back. It wasn't done right, got to do it again, another 33 pages. He calls another person. They tell him what to do. Doesn't get it right the second time. The third time's the charm, though. This takes several months during which time he's not getting the checks for the work he's doing for people who need his care. That's how government works."
While the WaWa story caused a bit of a stir, this little story about the change-of-address form at the post office is infinitely more interesting -- in part because it's so ridiculously untrue, and in part because it helps underscore the absurd philosophy Romney is trying to peddle on the campaign trail.
As Paul Waldman explained, "Have you ever changed your address? You probably have. Did you have to fill out a 33-page form? Of course you didn't. The form to change your address is a friggin' postcard. Old address, new address, when you want the change to happen. Done. You can do it online now, and it'll take about 2 minutes. Yet Mitt Romney gets up in front of a crowd of people and tells them that government is so awful, at the Post Office you have to fill out a 33-page form to change your address."
Romney wants -- and in fact, needs -- voters to have nothing but disdain for public institutions, which leads him to tell outlandish falsehoods like these with a straight face. And Republican voters, conditioned to believe that public institutions are broken and untrustworthy, accept the lies at face value.
But the non-existent 33-page change-of-address form underscores an important truth: if government is so awful, and the public bureaucracy is such a Brazil-like nightmare, why can't Romney point to real examples instead of passing along nonsense?
Update: There is a separate form for Medicaid fee-for-service providers to change their addresses, but the relevant form is 2, not 33, pages long.
Leave a Comment:
Can the bot produce the name of this poor, unfortunate soul who had to fill out the 33-page form three times? We would all be interested in knowing more about this, especially if it is representative of what we would all be compelled to do if changing our own addresses....
Reporters should ask Romney to produce the "33-page form." When he can't, they should call him out on it. Enough of letting this stuff slide.
Oh mpguy, you so silly. Reporters actually work? Go against their corporate overlords? Ha!
I Doctor Butler can verify this story. Paul Waldman is right, a change of address form is a post card. But if you want to change your address when you work in the medical profession is not so simple. I work at multiple locations and I must prove my credentials for each location that I work for and for each insurance company that I am a provider for, including government programs. three years ago i built a new office across the street, not across town, my address changed from 105 to 274 on the same street. I had to re-submit my credentials to every insurance company that I worked with. The process took almost a year. I did finally drop medicaid because the process wasn't worth the trouble.
Somehow that doesn't make the point that Romney is trying to sell, though.
@chemdmd
I'm saddened that your ONE YEAR process with the INSURANCE COMPANIES was worth your while, but patients with Medicaid (or Medicare?) weren't worth YOUR TROUBLE.
Talk about dishonesty and misrepresentation, just look at what MSNBC does everyday. Two examples with this story. First, if you watch the whole post you will know that Romney was not talking about the postcard you get from the post office. Instead, it was a long form needed so this optomitrist could be reimbursed from Medicade for providing free service to the poor and needy. So Madow is lying by misrepresenting the story. Second, just watch what Andrea Mitchell did on the video edit of the samee speech. Go to http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/19/msnbc-edits-romney-rally-speech-portrays-candidate-as-out-touch/ and you will see exactly what Romney said and how MSNBC distorted it. She is pulling another Zimmerman edit scandal. Please at least watch the video before you start calling me names.
Personally I don't believe these people he claims to meet, it may be having some Etch-A-Sketch moments. And he lives in his Etch_a_sketch world where anything that forms on the screen is true! He has lied so much if I had a quarter for every lied he told, I'd be as richer than Romoney wealthiest donor (I spelled that way, yes). They want us to forget how they got us here so they can do it again, but this time total collapse and a new money system which the completely control. (Mark of the beast?),
You'd be even richer if you got a quarter every time Pres. Obama lied.
Anyone in the medical profession who has had to deal with medicare knows that this story is true. You must realize that in a burocracy each person who helps create a from must add several pages with obscure questions on it so they can show their fellow workers that they are necessary. A year after Obamacare goes into effect, every tree in the country will be gone.
Um, the form that Rachel refers to is for NY State only. The form in PA, where Mitt was speaking, is either 27, 48, or 59 pages long. Go to www.eMedNY.org and click "about". It's all there in plain English.
> Go to www.eMedNY.org and click "about"
I did those two things and i'm nowhere near an example of the 27, 48, or 59 page form you're talking about. I would expect the PA form to be at emedNY.org anyway. . further clarification plz?
In a Romney-led America, the poor optometrist would not have to complete any forms at all; he would simply have to drive across town each day from his new office to his old office and pick up his mail. But, of course there would be no need to even do that, because there would be no more government reimbursement (read: entitlement) available to him for his fine work.
and no more post office. the optometrist would have to drive to the nearest for-profit mail business to pick up his check.
I hate to be nitpicky, but Steve misread the Romney quote. This isn't about the optometrist changing his address at the post office, Mitt only wanted to imply that. It's about the optometrist changing his address with Medicaid. The length of the form (which is almost certainly exaggerated) is probably to prevent Medicaid fraud. Is Mitt in favor of making things easier on the fraudsters now? Isn't his side the one complaining about all the rampant fraud in Medicaid? How does he think we reduce this without enlarging the bureaucracy? But of course, this is fairly typical of conservatives. Complain when there's not enough oversight, then complain about there are too many people doing oversight.
The actual form is 2 pages, 4 if you include the instructions. This was posted on Mediaite.
http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/6101-Address-Change-Form.pdf
That's an enrollment application, not a change of address form. The change of address form, as noted above, is a couple of pages.
The fact that there's a form that providers have to fill out that's long doesn't make what Romney--or the person he was quoting--said about the change of address form true.
Further, I should bloody well hope that any health care provider signing up to receive tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements--whether for the first time ever, because of a change in the practice entity such as a partnership breakup or a decision to form a corporation, or just because there's been some other change in the practice sufficient to invalidate a prior application--has to provide all of the information requested on this form.
And, finally, to Romney's why isn't like Wawa point, the instructions make it clear that providers can fill this form out online rather than doing it on paper.
The GOP is ALWAYS looking to give leeway to fraudsters who they claim are actually acting morally AGAINST the government.
I've never had any difficulty with US govt forms: the only time a request was delayed (getting a certificate of tax residency for being paid from abroad) was explained to me by the fact that there was going to be a new law coming in so every bank in America had filed for these certificates.
Even if the form were 33 pages long doesn't the optometrist have a staff to do things like that? Not even a receptionist?
Thanks for the replies. I didn't realize that someone had fact checked Romney's statement yet. It's not too surprising that the doctor was almost certainly lying to Romney (or Romney was lying about what the doctor told him).
Another, more likely scenario, is that there was no doctor who told Romney anything.
I'm going to give Willard the benefit of the doubt and assume he was not referring to the postal change of address (which, many of us have experienced, is a mere postcard) but rather change of address forms for participation in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement.
I don't doubt that is longer than a postcard -- because keeping careful track of receipient addresses and avoiding moving shell games is an important part of reducing fraud. Of course, if the government didn't take adequate steps to prevent defrauding of government programs, Willard would be up in front of the know-nothings complaining about that instead.
In short, even under the best case this was a disingenuous, gratuitous distortion.
Oh, by the way, I suspect there was an easy way for this optomotrist to avoid the paperwork: stop taking government "handouts" like a good Randian. But see, our government tries to help Americans of lesser means, and part of how it does that is to subsidize services, to the benefit of service providers like Willard's optomotrist. And to get those handouts, all the professional has to do is send in some forms. Sounds like a great deal. Because "that's how government works."
(Sorry DKO, looks like we were writing at the same time and I took longer to write!)
Or, the optometrist could do what most businesses do, have the checks go directly to his bank. Every business I ever worked for did this, mostly because it gets the money in the account faster. The bank sends you a copy of the checks and any paperwork that was with it.
Katherine
Out of curiosity the businesses you work for did the business owner do the paperwork or did a staff member do the paperwork? Just curious.
Thanks
First, maybe the optometrist needs new glasses because it doesn't seem that he was able to read the form the first or even second time he filled it out.
Second, I want to see the form. I think this so called 33 page business change of address form is fake and was actually born in Kenya.
My guess is that the doctor had to fill out a 3-page form to re-register his address with whichever govt branch is reimbursing him for his work with the poor. I've been filling a lot of money-related govt forms recently (Soc. Sec, VA), and they tend to be much more than a postcard, though nowhere near the 33-page monsters. But everyone's heard about the bad, bad, bad USPS, while nobody knows whatever obscure branch the doc is working with. And 33 pages sounds *much better* for the purpose ("the better to scare you off the public sector, my dear" said the wolf to the Little Red Riding Hood) than 3 pages.
As for having to fill out the forms three times, despite being advised by someone supposedly knowledgeable how to do it... 1) I've had a couple of instances of that kind of problem recently, too. But they all were connected to *private* institutions (banks, mutual funds, etc). 2) Hearing the doctor in question is an optometrist, one has to wonder if a) he's the same kind as Rand Paul (self-certified and rather dumb), and/or b) if this might be the case of "medico cure te ipso" and the good doctor just doesn't see well enough to fill out the forms correctly.
It occurs to me that the length of the form or forms health care providers must fill out in order continue receiving Medicare and/or Medicaid reimbursements after a change of address is an objectively verifiable fact that could be determined by asking the relevant agencies to provide exemplars of said forms.
If only we had some institution in this nation with the capacity to discover this information and report it to the public. Some kind of institution that had specific Constitutional sanction and protection so that it could pursue the truth and report it to the public without fear of reprisal.
Naw. Guess I'm just dreaming again.
Sadly, Romney is right on this one. Check out http://www.cms.gov/cmsforms/downloads/cms855b.pdf which has the documentation necessary to apply for a medicare provider number, and also, whenever any information changes, it must be updated on the form. It is actually 35 pages long.
That is actually the application for initial or changed enrollment in Medicare. The address change form is only 2 pages long, 4 including the instruction pages. Here's a link from Mediaite to the change of address form.
http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/6101-Address-Change-Form.pdf
How can you tell when Mitt Romney is lying?
When he opens his mouth.
I was about to point out that sometimes it's just his fingers moving, but then I remembered that he undoubtedly has someone take dictation.
I agree. This is not a post office change of address form; it was a form to ensure the guy gets his government payments for services he renders. In this case, Romney is right. It shouldn't require a 33 page form to change an address.
Therefore, my question becomes, what's the motivation for the 33 page form? Is there something else important about this address change that requires the form? Or, is it they get so few pure address changes that it's simply cheaper to not develop a unique form for those type of occurences?
I posted above the actual change of address form. The 33 page form is what you fill out to initially enroll as a provider, or when you have a change in structure of the practice, such as a new managing partner. The 33 pages in that case are to make sure that fraud is caught before it happens.
It's gotten to the point that I don't believe anything, nothing, nada, zip that comes out of Romney's mouth. His months of lying borders on the sociopathic.
No doubt a Medicare form is longer than a post office change of address card but unless the man in question and his office staff - where the form was completed, no doubt - are total dolts, I have trouble grasping why he had such difficulty with it. In any event, I suspect that, like the USPS, Medicare provides on-line forms just as billing can be done on-line.
I'm telling you, he's the GOPs very own Ted Bundy...
JJFFMM - I'd say a cross between Ted Bundy and Bud Bundy.
Google your states "Medicaid Change of Address" form and a whole lot of information comes up.
If you can't read through it and get it right the first time, maybe you shouldn't be practicing in a medical kind of capacity.
Or, you hire someone who understands the forms, and does your paperwork for you.
You can't tell me they can't afford it, either.
If it was a one page form, people would complain it would be too easy to defraud the taxpayer and the Medicare system. If it's a 33 or 35 page form, it's too long and it's an example of govt interference. Y'all need to make up your minds. Frankly, as a small business owner, I get the paperwork done that needs to be done - and I make sure it's done correctly. If you're sloppy in your paperwork that enables you to get paid, makes me wonder what else you're sloppy about with your business.
The form is the CMS-10114 and is 6 pages long. http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/CMS10114.pdf
It doesn't look all that complicated. Not to mention the fact that you can actually fill out an online version of the form (as long as you have an NPI number, which all doctors must have to claim any reimbursement from a federal program).
Well if I understood the info Romney was trying to say -- the supposed 33 page form was from medicare to the Dr to change the address to get reimbusement for services provided. Greg Sargent has a good article regarding this and is looking into the claim. Probably bogus as with most things Romney says. Sounds like a Michele Bachmann tall tale about a mystery women and the vaccine that caused the child to become retarded. They really should refrain from retelling anecdotes until they check out the veracity of the claim. But that would be the responsible thing to do -- and it is so much easier just to repeat something that shows how inefficient the "government" is.
For this doctor, the correct form to fill out for a change of address with Medicare is most likely the 855i (found here http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/cms855i.pdf) The entire form, including instructions, is 28 pages long. The number of pages that actually need to be filled out to change an address is much shorter. The reason the form is so long is that is acutally the same form that is used for initial enrollment in the program as well. A seperate form for a change of address by itself would be easier. In fairness, Mr. Romeny wasn't so far off on this one.
This is actually the most likely form this doctor was supposed to use, if he was changing his address with Medicare: http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/cms855i.pdf
It is 28 pages long, including instructions, but the portion that must be completed for a change of address by itself is much smaller. Unfortunately, this is the same form that is used for initial enrollment in the program as well. It would be better if a seperate form could be used for changes of address. Mr. Romney wasn't too far off on this one.
Romney can't possibly have experience with change-of-address forms; he has people he hires to handle that... whom he then fires.
Change of address uses this fancy technology called the internet!
The more I think about it, however, I can see where this may be a sore subject for Romney. Perhaps he meant that as many houses as he has, his moves require 33 pages of change of address forms.
Aldewitt is right. VeryverySad's link from Mediaite is for Medicaid changes (says so on the form once one links). Jsoutha1's does not change mailling address for reimbursements. ChrisinMichigan has it right. Here is what one has to do:
Check box on page 5, put in Medicare Identification Number, and National Provider Identifier (if issued)
Check box on page 6: Practice Location Information, Payment Address & Medical Record Storage Information
Fill out page 8 (bottom half) with your business info
READ page 12. If you have had any Final Adverse Legal Actions/Convictions, then fill out the relevant section of page 13.
READ page 14. Fill out pages 15, 16 and 17.
Fill out page 28.
Read pages 30-31 and fill out page 32 OR fill out pages 33-34.
It's a good thing Mitt won't need a change-of-address form next January. He is confused on so-o many matters. Should he by chance win (from Democratic apathy) he surely would be the nations first accidential president. (Oops! Our bad!).
If this is a "gotcha" moment for you guys on Mitt, Obama is toast in November.
I wouldn't call this much of a gotcha, but there have been plenty of others and we're not even to the debates yet. Those will certainly be Mitt's toaster. Unless of course the Koch boys can scrape up another billion to buy off all the fact-checkers.
He normally has his people doing all his finger pointing for him.
To sum it all up, one last time. The change of address form for Medicaid providers is two (2) pages:
http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/6101-Address-Change-Form.pdf
The change of address form for Medicare providers is three (3) page (plus three pages of instructions and dire perjury warnings):
http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/CMS10114.pdf
The fact that there are other forms that Medicare or Medicaid providers might, at some point, have to fill out that are longer doesn't make what Romney said in anyway true.
And the fact that the initial sign-up form people are waving around as the one he "must" have been talking about can be filled out online renders even the truthy version of what he said utterly false.
I'm not typically a defender of Mr. Romney, but you've just got this wrong. In order to receive payments for Medicare, the required form for a change of address is the CMS 855. In my post above, i linked to the 855i, which I believe is the correct version for this doctor. The online version of the form mentioned in the instructions is through the PECOS system, which for many months wasn't working properly. (I'm not sure it is even operational now). The NPI change of address you linked to would not be sufficient to change an address for payment purposes.
Again why is a doctor doing this his or her self? No staff? I have to doctor's offices that were very small but none were the doctor was the only person there. I even worked at a veterinarian's office and paper work was filled out by the staff not the veterinarian. Where is the delegation of work?
Well Maria, that's an entirely different argument, isn't it? I am by *no* means a Romney voter, but maybe the optometrist (like mine) works part time in a small room at the back of the glasses & contacts shop on Main St. (literally, mine works on Main St). Maybe it's just him, and he works only 10-12 hrs/week so he can be with his family, etc.
Chris Michigan and Sherry have this exactly right: the form is 30 pages or so; one only has to fill out 6-8 of these. Conclusions
1) That's a bit much for a simple address change.
2) I think it's comparable to what a very-large organization in the private sector would make you go through (think Wells Fargo bank or something).
Wow a part time optometrist. I've been wearing glasses since I was 12 (I am now 52) and I've never seen (literally) a part time optometrist. Also he's part time to be with his family etc. ? Lucky guy, I can think of many people who'd like that job. Does he have a trust fund?
I don't know the answers to those questions, and I'm not going to look for the answers 'cause they're irrelevant. It was a hypothetical anyway, meant to demonstrate how irrelevant your other point was.
Whether the optometrist, his receptionist, or his trained Koala fills out the form, it shouldn't be that complex. The End.