Home Health & Hospice Week

Bill aims to reign in bidding.

Though home medical equipment providers have been hearing "very soon" from officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for months, the saying "better late than never," may not be a widely held sentiment. Just days before CMS unveiled the final rule on April 2, a bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives introduced a bill in Congress that "would help ensure fairness and patient access to care in the new competitive bidding program for home medical equipment in Medicare," according to the American Association for Homecare. U.S. Reps. John Tanner (D-TN), David Hobson (R-OH) and Mike Ross (D-AR) co-sponsored the House bill (H.R. 1845). "The current law for competitive bidding threatens to reduce access to care for homecare patients served by the Medicare program," said the association in a missive to members. "The new bill would help to ensure that homecare providers can continue to compete in a fair program." The bill would allow any compliant home medical equipment provider to participate in Medicare at the selected award price, as long as the provider had submitted a bid at an amount less than the Medicare fee schedule amount. The bill also calls for Medicare to analyze the effect of competitive bidding on beneficiary access to quality products. And the bill would prohibit Medicare from expanding competitive bidding to additional MSAs or applying bid rates to non-bid areas unless specifically authorized by Congress.