Home Health & Hospice Week

Lawmakers to hear small suppliers' concerns in hearing.

An Oct. 31 hearing before a House subcommittee could buoy hopes for a legislative fix for Medicare's new competitive bidding program for home medical equipment.
 At press time, representatives of small HME suppliers and beneficiaries were set to testify before the U.S. House Small Business Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. The American Association for Homecare and the National Association of Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers (NAIMES) were among the groups representing stakeholders.

"This program will essentially crucify small businesses," NAIMES's Wayne Stanfield tells Eli.

"Since Medicare payments typically comprise 35 to 50 percent of a small provider's revenue, losing the ability to provide competitively bid items for a three-year contract period is essentially a death knell," says Georgie Blackburn, a Pittsburgh, PA-based home care provider who planned to speak on behalf of AAHomecare.

AAHomecare and others are calling on Congress to adopt changes to the bidding program contained in the Durable Medical Equipment Access Act of 2007 (H.R. 1845).

Pin Hopes On This Bill The so-called Hobson-Tanner bill (H.R. 1845) now has 134 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Specifically, the Hobson-Tanner bill would:

• exempt smaller, rural areas from bidding;

• allow all home care providers who meet Medicare participation standards and who submit a bid to continue to provide equipment and services under Medicare at the lower competitively bid rate established by CMS;

• restore providers' rights to administrative and judicial review; and

• exempt Medicare items and services unless bidding achieves savings of at least 10 percent.