Providers Descend on Washington
- By David Kopf
- Mar 05, 2010
Nearly 300 providers converged on Capitol Hill March 2 to attend the American Association for Homecare's Washington Legislative Conference. They will have hundreds of meetings today and tomorrow with lawmakers and their staffs to lobby on behalf of the industry.
At the top of the agenda is the continued push to convince elected officials in the House to co-sponsor H.R. 3790, which calls for the repeal of CMS's national competitive bidding program. The bill to end NCB, introduced by Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), was up to 150 co-sponsors as of March 2, when Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) announced at AAHomecare's preconference reception that he would co-sponsor H.R. 3790.
The conference comes on the heels of President Barack Obama's presentation of his plan for health care reform, which includes provisions from the Senate's health care reform bill that directly target the HME industry.
"Twelve months ago when we selected the date of this year's conference, we obviously had no way of knowing what the status would be of the ongoing congressional debate on healthcare reform," AAHomecare President Tyler Wilson told attendees. "Well, we were fairly confident that the home care community would still have concerns about competitive bidding, oxygen reimbursement, the first-month purchase option for power wheelchairs, and no doubt other issues, we could not predict how the discussion about our issues would stack up timing-wise against all the other large health care questions that were being debated.
"So I can tell you, standing here on March 2, that you've come to Washington at a prefect time," he said, adding that the nation's health care is at a crossroads given the current push for far-reaching reform, such as those outlined in the President's proposal. "Almost everything related to health care is in play, and that means nearly everything is up for debate. And that, in simple terms, is good news and bad news for the home care community."
Threats to respiratory therapy included in the president's reform proposal
include:
- Increasing the geographic coverage of Round Two of national competitive bidding to include 21 more competitive bidding areas.
- Applying NCB prices nationwide to all HMEs by 2016.
- Removing the 2-percent fee schedule increase for DME categories covered in the bidding. This increase was promised to providers per MIPPA in exchange for the delay to implementing Round One.
- Requiring mandatory face-to-faces for all HME claims.
- A productivity adjustment to the HME fee schedule that will annually lower payments by 1 percent to 1.5 percent.
On the positive side, Wilson said the industry is "in a good position to move the ball down the field" on primary issues, such as repealing competitive bidding via the Meek bill. He added that providers also had a "great opportunity" to make other gains in protecting and reforming the oxygen benefit.
As part of their lobbying agenda for today and tomorrow, providers pushed for support of H.R. 2373, the Home Oxygen Patient Protection Act, which was introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), calling for ending the 36-month rental cap for oxygen equipment and restoring payments to the length of medical need.
Providers also worked to gain support for implementing other reforms to the oxygen benefit that were outlined by the industry last year. These included establishing a uniform level of service for patients; establishing retesting requirements; setting standards for home oxygen; conducting annual cost surveys of suppliers; outlining beneficiary "rights" regarding the level of treatment and choice of providers; and creation of a Home Oxygen Services Advisory Committee within HHS.
"We have a good story to tell and can paint a positive picture with deep conviction, because it's both true and because it's confirmed by the people who receive home care," he said, commending the audience for enduring the expense to travel to Washington to lobby on behalf of the industry. "The industry has to fight to protect its interests, and it has to stand up and push back when there is bad public policy coming out of Washington, D.C."
About the Author
David Kopf is the Editor of HME Business.