NCAMES Attends White House Reform Forum

The North Carolina
Association for Medical Equipment Services‘ Beth Bowen,
executive director, and Joey Tart, past president, attended the
fourth regional White House forum on health reform, held March 31
in Greensboro, N.C. Hosted by Gov. Beverly Perdue and Nancy-Ann
DeParle, director of the White House Office for Health Reform, the
event drew an estimated 700-800 people, with clinicnans about 40
percent of the invited participants, according to Bowen.

Despite efforts to be recognized for a turn at the mike —
including Tart, president of Family Medical Supply in
Dunn, waving his portfolio in the air — “we weren’t called
upon to make our case for the home medical industry,” Bowen said,
although a letter from NCAMES was given to Gov. Perdue. In a
release about the meeting, Bowen urged, “Our fragmented health care
system is a huge problem — integration and a primary care
network is critical. Let’s stop this ‘hamster health care,’ running
around with no progress, like it is now and reform the health care
delivery system as it is today. Home care and the DME industry is
part of the solution!”

The fifth and final in the series of regional health reform
summits, called for by President Obama, will be held today in Los
Angeles.