WCMSA and Revision of the Low Dollar Threshold for Medicare Beneficiaries

The purpose of this memorandum is to replace Q/A #2 of the July 11, 2005 Memorandum with regard to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) low dollar WCMSA threshold for Medicare beneficiaries. Effective with the issuance of this memorandum, CMS will only review new WCMSA proposals for Medicare beneficiaries where the total settlement amount is greater than $25,000.00. The CMS wishes to stress that this is a CMS workload review threshold and not a substantive dollar or “safe harbor” threshold. Medicare beneficiaries must still consider Medicare’s interests in all WC cases and ensure that Medicare is secondary to WC in such cases.