Harmful proposals reappear in Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 14, 2012—According to the American Association for Homecare, if you need yet another reason to be worried about the expansion of competitive bidding and regulatory burdens on HME, here it is.

A broad coalition of labor groups and trade association groups recently endorsed the current Medicare bidding program and proposed that bid prices be applied to Medicaid as well as Medicare. The group, called the National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC), also described the durable medical equipment sector as “a high risk claims category” and called for prepayment review for DME claims.

While these warmed-over ideas have been suggested by policymakers a number of times before, the proposals represent continuing false impressions—that the bidding program is going well and should be expanded and that the home medical equipment sector represents a serious fraud problem.

AAHomecare attended the briefing by the NCHC where the proposals were announced, and the association sent NCHC a detailed rebuttal and supporting documents to explain why the NCHC recommendations for the home medical equipment sector are bad ideas. NCHC represents a broad array of organizations including physician, consumer and patient groups.

Not only that, but the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, is proposing that competitive bidding be applied to all health care products including medical devices, orthotics, prosthetics, lab tests, imaging—everything. But every member of Congress needs to hear about the problems with the bidding program and should be urged to support H.R. 6490. Contact your lawmakers today through our Action Center (http://action.aahomecare.org). Please convince five of your colleagues to do the same. Congress is back in session this week and they must include the market pricing program outlined in H.R. 6490 in whatever Medicare package lawmakers push through in these final days of the 112th Congress. Learn more at www.aahomecare.org.